Raising public awareness of the need to use antibiotics appropriately is a major focus of the UK Government's strategy to tackle antimicrobial resistance. To investigate the public's views on antibiotic use and resistance we conducted a survey of 120 people as part of patient engagement activities held at University College London Hospital in June 2015

Berin, M

Noursadeghi, M

Roe, J

Shallcross, LJ

UCL Discovery

LETTER TO THE EDITOR Open AccessAre the public getting the message aboutantimicrobial resistance?Laura J Shallcross1*, Michelle Berin2, Jennifer Roe2 and Mahdad Noursadeghi2AbstractRaising public awareness of the need to use antibiotics appropriately is a major focus of the UK Government’sstrategy to tackle antimicrobial resistance. To investigate the public’s views on antibiotic use and resistance weconducted a survey of 120 people as part of patient engagement activities held at University College LondonHospital in June 2015.Keywords: Antimicrobial resistance, Patient engagement, Public health, Antimicrobial prescribingBackgroundImproving public and professional awareness of anti-microbial resistance is a key part of efforts to reduceantimicrobial resistance [1], and is being led by initiativessuch as European Antibiotic Awareness Day (EAAD). Aspart of patient engagement activities at University CollegeLondon Hospital (UCLH) research open day on 23rd June2015, we conducted a survey of individuals who wereseeking information on research projects related toantibiotic use and antibiotic resistance.The studyWe developed a one-page survey to assess the public’sattitudes to and knowledge about antibiotic use andresistance, based on a previously validated questionnaire(Additional file 1) [2]. Ethical approval was not sought be-cause the survey formed part of public engagement activ-ities and no personal data was collected. All individualsattending our research stand during the open day were of-fered the survey. 120 individuals completed the survey, 66of whom were female. 26 participants were less than25 years old, 54 were aged 25–44, 25 were aged 45–64and there were 14 individuals aged over 65 years.FindingsOverall 55 % of those surveyed thought the doctor’sdecision to prescribe an antibiotic was driven by patientexpectation, and this view was most commonly held byindividuals aged more than 44 years (74 %). More thantwo-thirds of those surveyed reported that they trustedthe doctor’s decision when he or she chose either toprescribe or to withhold an antibiotic. Most individualswere aware that antibiotics are used to treat bacterialinfections (91 %). Of greater concern is the finding that28 % of individuals thought antibiotics were an effectivetreatment for viral infections and this view was held bymore than one-third of individuals aged less than 25 years.79 % of individuals completing the questionnaire agreedthat resistance to antibiotics is a problem in the UK, but39 % thought that antibiotic resistance is mainly a prob-lem in other countries. Patients were asked to select thesingle biggest health problem in the UK from a listcomprising: alcohol abuse, cancer, drug abuse, ebola, ‘flu,resistance to antibiotics, smoking and stroke. Cancer(22 %), alcohol abuse (22 %), smoking (18 %) and anti-biotic resistance (15 %) were all identified as importanthealth issues but 26 people (22 %) were unable to select asingle health problem from the list.Amongst patients completing our survey there was ahigh-level of awareness and interest in antimicrobial resist-ance. This is perhaps unsurprising, given that individualsattending patient engagement events tend to be interestedin research and topical health issues. Nonetheless, evenwithin this population, more than one–quarter of individ-uals thought antibiotics were used to treat viral infections.If we hope to reduce inappropriate antibiotic use, moreneeds to be done to understand how to communicatemessages about appropriate antibiotic use to the public.* Correspondence: l.shallcross@ucl.ac.uk1UCL Centre for Infectious Disease Informatics, Farr Institute of HealthInformatics Research, 222 Euston Road, London NW1 2DA, UKFull list of author information is available at the end of the articleARCHIVES OF PUBLIC HEALTH© 2015 Shallcross et al. Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, andreproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link tothe Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver(http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.Shallcross et al. Archives of Public Health  (2015) 73:55 DOI 10.1186/s13690-015-0108-6Additional fileAdditional file 1: Antibiotic questionnaire.Competing interestsThe authors declare that they have no competing interests.Authors’ contributionLS designed the questionnaire, administered the questionnaire, analysedthe data and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. MN designed thequestionnaire and revised the manuscript. MB and JR administered thequestionnaire and revised the manuscript. All authors read and approvedthe final manuscript.Author details1UCL Centre for Infectious Disease Informatics, Farr Institute of HealthInformatics Research, 222 Euston Road, London NW1 2DA, UK. 2UCL Infectionand Immunity, Cruciform Building, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK.Received: 26 October 2015 Accepted: 3 November 2015References1. Department of Health. UK 5 Year Antimicrobial Resistance Strategy 2013 to2018. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-5-year-antimicrobial-resistance-strategy-2013-to-2018 . Accessed 23 Sep 2015.2. Andre M, Vernby A, Berg J, Lundborg CS. A survey of public knowledge andawareness related to antibiotic use and resistance in Sweden. J AntimicrobChemother. 2010;65(6):1292–6.Submit your next manuscript to BioMed Centraland take full advantage of: • Convenient online submission• Thorough peer review• No space constraints or color ﬁgure charges• Immediate publication on acceptance• Inclusion in PubMed, CAS, Scopus and Google Scholar• Research which is freely available for redistributionSubmit your manuscript at www.biomedcentral.com/submitShallcross et al. Archives of Public Health  (2015) 73:55 Page 2 of 2

Are the public getting the message about antimicrobial resistance?

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Are the public getting the message about antimicrobial resistance?

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