Socio-economic factors, cultural values, national personality and antibiotics use: A cross-cultural study among European countries

Abstract

There are considerable cross-national differences in public attitudes towards antibiotics use, use of prescribed antibiotics, and self-medication with antibiotics even within Europe. This study was aimed at investigating the relationships between socio-economic factors, cultural values, national personality characteristics and the antibiotic use in Europe. Data included scores from 27 European countries (14 countries for personality analysis). Correlations between socio-economic variables (Gross National Income per capita, governance quality, life expectancy, mean years of schooling, number of physicians), Hofstede's cultural value dimensions (power distance, individualism, masculinity, uncertainty avoidance, long-term orientation, indulgence), national personality characteristic (extraversion, neuroticism, social desirability) and antibiotic use were calculated and three regression models were constructed. Governance quality (r=-.51), mean years of schooling (r=-.61), power distance (r=.59), masculinity (r=.53), and neuroticism (r=.73) correlated with antibiotic use. The highest amount of variance in antibiotic use was accounted by the cultural values (65%) followed by socio-economic factors (63%) and personality factors (55%). Results show that socio-economic factors, cultural values and national personality characteristics explain cross-national differences in antibiotic use in Europe. In particular, governance quality, uncertainty avoidance, masculinity and neuroticism were important factors explaining antibiotics use. The findings underline the importance of socio-economic and cultural context in health care and in planning public health interventions.

Prevalence of antibiotic prescription in southern Italian outpatients: real-world data analysis of socioeconomic and sociodemographic variables at a municipality level

“… 13 – 15 In this regard, several investigations have confirmed that socioeconomic and sociodemographic factors (eg, population, annual income, demographic structure, and cultural values) are significant determinants to explain differences in antibiotic consumption. 17 , 18 , 42 Gaygisiz et al 42 showed that the high variability in antibiotic use was influenced by cultural values (65%), followed by socioeconomic (63%) and personality (55%) factors.…”

Thank Martin Luther that ciprofloxacin could cure your gonorrhoea? Ecological association between Protestantism and antimicrobial consumption in 30 European countries

“…Countries with high levels of corruption (low CoC) have poorer institutional controls on prescribing practices and greater influence of pharmaceutical companies both of which can result in increased AMC 12,19,20 . Previous ecological studies have found associations between national level CoC, UA, POCO and the proportion of the country being Protestant 7,8,13,16,21 . Multivariate country-level studies from within Europe and elsewhere have also found that UA and POCO 7,8,18,22 are predictors of AMC and an additional study has found that UA, POCO and CoC are independently associated with AMC 16 .…”

“…Two cultural dimensions have consistently been found to explain variations in AMC both within Europe and worldwide [5][6][7][8]13,14,16 . These are Hofstede's uncertainty avoidance index (UA) and performance-orientation versus cooperation-orientation index (POCO) [5][6][7][8]13,14,16 . Both indices are negatively associated with both the proportion of a country that is Protestant 17 and AMC [5][6][7][8]16 .…”

“…These are Hofstede's uncertainty avoidance index (UA) and performance-orientation versus cooperation-orientation index (POCO) [5][6][7][8]13,14,16 . Both indices are negatively associated with both the proportion of a country that is Protestant 17 and AMC [5][6][7][8]16 . The UA index is a measure of the extent to which a society feels threatened by ambiguous or unknown situations.…”

Prevention and Control of Multidrug-Resistant Bacteria in The Netherlands and Germany—The Impact of Healthcare Structures

“…The reasons have not been studied in detail, but could involve both educational and socio-cultural aspects (e.g., attitude towards prescribing antibiotics, expectations of patients etc.) [18,19]. One example is the dissimilar use of oral cefuroxime in these two countries (Table 2).…”