Investigation of awareness of antibiotics and antibiotic resistance in urban residents in Changping district, Beijing

  Objective  To analyze the awareness, attitude and behavior about antibiotics and antibiotic resistance in urban residents at different ages and educational levels in Changping district of Beijing and understand the problems in awareness of antibiotics and antibiotic resistance in urban population.

  Methods  Questionnaires about the awareness, attitude and behavior about antibiotics and antibiotic resistance were designed and used on WeChat “Questionnaire Star” platform in a stratified random sampling survey, and software SPSS was used for statistical analysis and χ² test was used to analyze the differences in the awareness, attitude and behavior about antibiotics and antibiotic resistance among different groups.

  Results  A total of 1267 valid questionnaires were collected. According to the age and education level, the respondents were divided into seven age groups and four educational background groups respectively. The correct awareness rates of antibiotics, antibiotic resistance and the spread of antibiotic resistance were 58.09%, 48.38% and 52.80%, respectively. Besides, the correct awareness rate in people with postgraduate degree or above was significantly higher than those in people in other three education background groups (χ²=32.378, P<0.05). Up to 90.69% of the respondents would like to acquire the knowledge of antibiotics. Before taking antibiotics, 93.61% of the respondents wanted to know antibiotic dosage, use precautions and related adverse reactions, and 89.42% would read the usage introduction. In the respondents, 93.37% believed that prescription should be obtained before purchasing antibiotics, but only 74.19% admitted that they used antibiotics strictly following doctors’ advice, 71.03% had antibiotic stockpile at home. 55.72% would had self-medication when they felt uncomfortable and 23.84% would increase, decrease or stop antibiotic use according to their illness status. Moreover, 55.01% of the respondents believed that they had excessive or irregular use of antibiotics.

  Conclusion  The national action plan to contain antibiotic resistance have been implemented for five years. The awareness of the public about antibiotics and antibiotic resistance has been greatly improved. However, the awareness about the prevalence of antibiotic resistance and harms of antibiotic resistance varied among populations, the non-consistency existed between awareness and practice about antibiotic use and the proportion of the respondents who knew their inappropriate use of antibiotics was low, indicating that the health education about appropriate use of antibiotics needs to be strengthened in people at different ages and educational levels to curb the spread of antibiotic resistance.