M. Shyami Tarao, Polly Nulla, Zingpi M, Agatha G
The threat of antibiotic resistance is rapidly progressing. Awareness on its seriousness is the first step towards curtailing its progress. Young doctors should be given more education during their undergraduate training regarding antibiotic resistance & appropriate prescribing. The objective of this study was to determine the knowledge, attitude concerning antibiotic resistance as well as their self-reported practices related to antibiotic usage among the undergraduate medical students of Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Medical Sciences (JNIMS), Imphal Manipur. A cross-sectional study was conducted during March to May 2014. Data were collected through self-administered questionnaire and analyzed by SPSS version 22. Descriptive statistics like mean, SD and percentages were used. Chi-square test was used for analysis where p-value of less than 0.05 was taken as significant. Out of 372 undergraduate medical students, 52% were females and their mean age was 21.9±1.8 (SD) years. It was found that 68.3% of the respondents had the knowledge of antibiotics being used for killing/inhibiting bacteria. Indiscriminate used of antibiotic lead to ineffective treatment (96.5%), leading to bacterial resistance (96%). Only 40.1% of them consulted doctor before they start antibiotics and 54.8% stop the antibiotics if they felt better after 2-3 doses of antibiotics. The knowledge of bacterial resistance following indiscriminate use of antibiotics was significantly higher among male (p=0.005) students and who were below 20 years of age (p=0.05) and after crossing 1st MBBS (p=0.001). Hence it is the time to educate the students to ensure complete course of antibiotics uses.
