Omani senior secondary school students’ knowledge of and attitudes to antibiotic resistance

Abstract

Antibiotic resistance is a worldwide problem that is increasing largely due to the misuse of antibiotics in human health and agriculture. This situation is further exacerbated by a dearth of new antibiotic development, the focus of pharmaceutical companies having shifted to more lucrative treatments for chronic conditions such as elevated blood pressure. To conserve the efficacy of the current crop of antibiotics, it is vital that they are used appropriately by individuals. Effective education may be a means to achieve such appropriate use. This paper reports on a large-scale, mixed methods study, which employed a survey and oral questionnaires, undertaken with senior secondary Omani students. The study explored students’ understanding of antibiotic resistance as well as their attitudes to the issue of antibiotic resistance. The study findings indicated that, although some students had a reasonably clear understanding of antibiotic resistance, many had serious misconceptions that could result in misuse of antibiotics. The article concludes with suggestions for amending secondary school pedagogy in Oman to address the misconceptions.

Using a pharmacist-led educational tool to teach elementary and middle-school students in Lebanon about microbes, antibiotic use and antimicrobial resistance: A pilot study

“…A scoping review assessed the impact of public education campaigns in fostering health behaviour change on AMR and showed positive results towards raising public AMR awareness and embracing positive behavioural changes to impact AMR and maintain antimicrobial viability (McParland et al, 2018;Fletcher-Miles et al, 2020). Students have repeatedly been a focus of educational activities targeting AMR, whether at post-graduate (Eveillard et al, 2016), college (Valderrama et al, 2018;Kvint, Palm, & Farewell, 2020;Antunes et al, 2021) or high school (Azevedo et al, 2009;Fonseca et al, 2012;Ambusaidi et al, 2022) levels. Plenty of reports in the literature describe effective education as a means to foster the appropriate use of antibiotics, and combat AMR, relying on surveys, oral questionnaires, and a variety of teaching modalities to address gaps in knowledge and misconceptions about the topic (Ambusaidi et al, 2022).…”

“…Students have repeatedly been a focus of educational activities targeting AMR, whether at post-graduate (Eveillard et al, 2016), college (Valderrama et al, 2018;Kvint, Palm, & Farewell, 2020;Antunes et al, 2021) or high school (Azevedo et al, 2009;Fonseca et al, 2012;Ambusaidi et al, 2022) levels. Plenty of reports in the literature describe effective education as a means to foster the appropriate use of antibiotics, and combat AMR, relying on surveys, oral questionnaires, and a variety of teaching modalities to address gaps in knowledge and misconceptions about the topic (Ambusaidi et al, 2022). To address the irrational use of these drugs, the focus of the educational interventions and awareness campaigns is shifting to junior (7-11 years) and senior (12-15 years) school students (Taylor et al, 2003;Cebotarenco et al, 2008;Young et al, 2017;Zhang et al, 2018) to spread awareness in this stratum of the population (Cebotarenco et al, 2008;Young et al, 2017;Zhang et al, 2018).…”