Assessment Of Knowledge And Perceived Practices Of Antimicrobial Stewardship Among Malaysian Future Healthcare Professionals

• Published in: Value in health Vol. 20; no. 9; p. A693
• Main Authors: Ahmad, S, Sulaiman, LH, Qamar, M, Shaikh, FA, Ismail, NE
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Lawrenceville Elsevier Science Ltd 01-10-2017
• Subjects: Antibiotics; Antimicrobial agents; Chi-square test; Citizenship; Demography; Dentistry; Health care; Health care management; Knowledge; Management; Medical personnel; Nursing; Pharmacy; Questionnaires; Response rates; Sampling; Social sciences; Sociodemographics; Statistical analysis; Statistics; Students; Malaysia
• ISSN: 1098-3015; 1524-4733
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jval.2017.08.1772

OBJECTIVES: The antimicrobial stewardship is currently not mandatory as part of the undergraduate healthcare educational programs. Better understanding of current levels of knowledge and perceived practices can facilitate more effective educational interventions for future healthcare professionals. Therefore, this study was conducted to assess the levels of knowledge and perceived practices of Malaysian final year undergraduate healthcare students towards the antimicrobial stewardship. METHODS: This cross-sectional study was conducted from January to April, 2017, using a self-administered questionnaire in the State of Selangor, Malaysia. The questionnaire consisted of three parts: socio-demographic characteristics of respondents (5 items), knowledge (8 items), and perceived practice (8 items) towards antimicrobial stewardship. A convenience sampling approach was used to recruit undergraduate final year students from the faculties of pharmacy, medicine, dentistry, and nursing in MAHSA University, Malaysia.The descriptive (numbers, and percentages) and inferential (Spearman's correlation coefficients, and Chi-square test) statistical analyses were conducted by using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), version 23. RESULTS: Post-oral consent, a total of 180 undergraduate final year healthcare students completed the questionnaire, giving an overall response rate of 81.4%. The majority (n=107, 59.4%) of the respondents showed good levels of knowledge and (n=122, 67.8%) perceived practices. There was a statistically significant moderately positive correlation between the overall knowledge and attitude score of the enrolled students (r=0.450, p<0.001). No statistically significant association was found between the categoiies of socio-demographic character istics and perceived practices, whereas, students' age (p<0.040) and nationality (p<0.02S) categories showed the statistically significant associations across the levels of knowledge enrolled students. CONCLUSIONS: The enrolled students possessed good levels of knowledge and perceived practices regarding antimicrobia. stewardship. Continuous efforts focusing the principles and practices of appropriate use of antibiotics and antimicrobial stewardship arc essentials to sustain these good levels of knowledge and practices for future healthcare providers.