O-2089

The sustainable control of gastro-intestinal nematodes remains one of the main perennial endemic disease pressures that farmers face with infections impacting on health, welfare and production efficiency of livestock. For over 50 years parasite control strategies in many countries relied heavily on suppressing nematode populations with frequent use of broad-spectrum anthelmintics. The effectiveness and availability of products across Europe is markedly different, but the need to maintain sustainable productivity is universal. As part of an EU COST action (COMBAR; https://www.combarca.eu) a questionnaire was disseminated to sheep farmers from European countries to gather information on: 1) farmer demographics and enterprise characteristics 2) general roundworm control/anthelmintic resistance attitude statements 3) knowledge and understanding questions 4) attitudinal statements regarding parasite control recommendation and 5) parasite control behaviours. Completed questionnaires were returned by over 2300 respondents from nine countries across Europe: Austria, Greece, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and Wales. Descriptive analysis indicated the perception of roundworms as a major problem on farms is lower in southern Europe compared to central and northern Europe, a similar pattern occurs when examining how roundworms rank in comparison to other endemic diseases.COMBAR COST EUinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Barriers and incentives for uptake of diagnostics for sustainable worm control by European dairy cattle farmers

To mitigate emerging anthelmintic resistance in cattle, sustainable worm control strategies should be adopted, such as the use of diagnostic methods to take informed treatment decisions. To understand the factors affecting European farmers’ intention to adopt diagnostic methods and to gauge for differences between European regions, a theoretical framework, based on theories in the field of behavioural psychology and health psychology, was validated through a questionnaire survey, carried out in dairy farms in 6 European countries. Despite insufficient data from 2 countries and several confounders prohibiting statistical comparisons between countries, three models were developed, which allowed to describe general trends and differences between regions. Data from Northern-(Norway) and Central-Europe (Austria and Germany) resulted in two similar models, which differed in 3 questions. Southern Europe’s (Italy) data were more difficult to align with the conceptual model and several factors were deleted to fit the model. In all models, subjective norms, affected by a bandwagon bias, had the largest influence on farmers’ adoption intention. Perception of anthelmintic resistance had no effect on adoption intention for Northern and Central, but to some extent for Southern Europe. In Northern and Central Europe, attitude towards anthelmintics had a negative effect on adoption intention, while attitude towards diagnostics had a positive effect. Both types of attitudes were affected by the default bias. Finally, by combining self-reported practices for Northern and Central Europe, a larger effect of descriptive norms on farmers’ actual adoption of diagnostics was observed, compared to adoption intention and the default bias.COST EUinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Perceptions and attitudes to sustainable roundworm control by European sheep farmers

The sustainable control of gasto-intestinal nematodes remains one of the main perennial endemic disease pressures that farmers face with infections impacting on health, welfare and production efficiency of livestock. For over 50 years parasite control strategies in many countries relied heavily on suppressing nematode populations with frequent use of broad-spectrum anthelmintics. The effectiveness and availability of products across Europe is markedly different, but the need to maintain sustainable productivity is universal. As part of an EU COST action (COMBAR; https://www.combarca.eu) a questionnaire was disseminated to sheep farmers from European countries to gather information on: 1) farmer demographics and enterprise characteristics 2) general roundworm control/anthelmintic resistance attitude statements 3) knowledge and understanding questions 4) attitudinal statements regarding parasite control recommendation and 5) parasite control behaviours.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio