Knowledge, Attitude, and Practices of Antibiotics and Antibiotic Resistance among Pharmacy Customers in Punjab, Pakistan: A Multicenter Survey Study

Antibiotics are widely used drugs for numerous infectious diseases and antibiotic resistance is increasing rapidly due to misuses of antibiotics. Our aim was to determine the knowledge, attitude and practices of antibiotics and antibiotic resistance among pharmacy customers in Punjab, Pakistan. A cross sectional survey was conducted on community pharmacies using a self-administered questionnaire. A systematic random sampling approach was used to recruit the participants. Categorical data was represented by percentages. P-value was determined using chi square test. A p-value less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. A total of 865 participants completed the survey. Amoxicillin (39.9%) was the antibiotic most commonly used by customers and bacterial infection (64.7%) was the major reason for which antibiotics were being used. About 54.3% had used antibiotics as self-medication. Majority (43.4%) thought that it would be better to stop taking antibiotics when symptoms resolved. About 43.9% used leftover antibiotics for same disease again. About 67.6% regularly read the label before antibiotics. The respondents who claimed that they had antibiotics in purchasing and knew about antibiotic resistance gave significant variations (p < 0.001) regarding the side effects of antibiotics and use of antibiotics in pregnancy. Significant variations (p < 0.001) were also found in all the attitudes and practices of the respondents. The knowledge and practices of the pharmacy customers regarding antibiotics was almost satisfactory but attitudes are poor. There is a need to be addressed by public education campaigns to increase the health status of the community.