Knowledge and attitude of residents in Abeokuta to antibiotic use and resistance

Abstract

Antibiotic resistance is a source of concern among healthcare practitioners in Nigeria and around the world. This study therefore was carried out to assess the relationship of the socio-demography of respondents and the knowledge of antibiotic resistance and their attitudes to antibiotic use. Five hundred questionnaires were distributed and received from respondents (100%). The Combination of content analysis of reviewed literature and structured questionnaire purposively distributed was adopted in the study. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to assess the knowledge of antibiotic resistance, Pearson chi-square was engaged to evaluate whether respondents’ age, marital status, education and gender differ in their knowledge of antibiotics. A multiple Bonferroni correction test, P =α/n was further used to determine the significant difference between sociodemographic characteristics and knowledge of antibiotic resistance and antibiotic use. The respondents comprised of 53% males and 47% females from the inferential statistics. A significant chi-square of gender (X²=13.29, P<0.000) was obtained while the comparison with Bonferroni corrections showed a significant difference between the knowledge scores of male and female respondents. A significant chi-square of X²=35.62, P<0.002 was obtained for ages of respondents with a Bonferroni correction showing a significant difference between ages 18-29 and 40-49. Non-significant chi-square was obtained for respondents’ educational qualification, (X² = 1.420, p >0.701.). There was insignificant difference between respondents’ educational qualification and age in follow up comparisons. The research showed that age and gender were predictors of antibiotic knowledge of residents while educational qualification was not necessarily a major predictor. It also showed the deficient knowledge of respondents in antibiotic resistance with 319 (63.8%) of the participants not agreeing to bacteria spreading antibiotic resistance. The problem of antibiotic resistance is a global problem and it requires global enlightenment and education on the possible sources, causes and prevention of antibiotic resistance.