Antimicrobial stewardship: knowledge, perceptions, and factors associated with antibiotics misuse among consumer’s visiting the community pharmacies in a Nigeria Southwestern State

Abstract

Background

In middle-income countries like Nigeria, the misuse of antibiotics by consumers is posing serious threats to public health. This is contributing to the alarming increase in antimicrobial resistance, which is reducing the effectiveness of antibiotics against common infections. This study therefore aimed to assess the knowledge, perceptions, and factors associated with antibiotics misuse among consumers visiting selected community pharmacies.

Methods

This cross-sectional study conducted in Ibadan, Nigeria, aimed at determining factors influencing antibiotics misuse among consumers. The questionnaires were completed by 509 consumers. The analysis was done using SPSS version 26 and the results were presented using descriptive statistics. The associations between categorical variables were analysed using Pearson’s Chi-square with statistical significance set at p < 0.05.

Results

Results showed that 95.9% of the consumers believed that antibiotics prevent bacterial growth, and 60.7% thought they treat all infections. However, 57.4% were unaware of antibiotic resistance, while only 14.7% had adequate knowledge about antibiotics. Most of the consumers, 72.5% had used antibiotics in the last 12 months and, amoxicillin 42.4% was the most commonly used with, malaria 38.9% as the primary condition for which antibiotics were used. Some of the significant factors influencing antibiotics misuse included delays in test reports (p-value = 0.007), the belief in antibiotics’ quick relief (p-value = 0.001), proximity of the pharmacy to their house or workplace (p-value = 0.028), amongst others.

Conclusion

Most of the consumers had inadequate knowledge about rational antibiotic use which contributed to their misuse of antibiotics. Thus, targeted educational interventions are needed to improve knowledge and promote appropriate antibiotic use among consumers. Policies regulating the dispensing and selling of antibiotics with adequate counselling should be further enforced.

Keywords:

• Community pharmacy
• Consumers
• Antimicrobial resistance
• Antibiotics misuse

Acknowledgements

We would like to express our appreciation to the students who accepted to participate and dedicated their time to fill the questionnaire.

Author contributions

WAS had the original idea, developed the study protocol, drafted the manuscript, contributed to the data collection and data analysis/interpretation. EO developed study protocol and contributed to the data collection and data analysis/interpretation. All authors contributed to the preparation of the manuscript, read, and approved the final version.

Funding

No specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sector received in carrying out this study.

Availability of data and materials

The datasets used and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

Declarations

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Ethics approval for the study was obtained from the joint University of Ibadan/University College Hospital Institution Review Board with approval number UI/EC/22/0110. Verbal informed consent in accordance with the approved study protocol by the Ethics committee, was obtained from individual consumer after explaining the objectives and procedure of the study to participant individually. Verbal informed consent was deemed appropriate for our study being a questionnaire-based survey with questions carefully designed without infringement on participants’ privacy. Only the consented participants within the study period were enrolled.

Consent for publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

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