University students’ antibiotic use and knowledge of antimicrobial resistance: what are the common myths?

We aimed to assess antibiotic usage and knowledge regarding antibiotics and antimicrobial resistance (AMR) among undergraduate students of Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD), public university located in Brunei Darussalam. A cross-sectional study was performed using a self-administered questionnaire. The questionnaire was adapted from the World Health Organization (WHO) Antibiotic Resistance, Multi-country public awareness survey distributed online. Students at UBD were invited to participate in the online survey through internal email. The questionnaire consisted of 5 sections: demographic information, antibiotic usage, knowledge on antibiotics, antibiotic resistance (AMR) and use of antibiotics in agriculture. Data were analyzed descriptively and appropriate inferential statistics was used accordingly. A total of 145 students returned the complete questionnaire. The result of the study found that 50% of the students had good level of knowledge of antibiotic and antimicrobial resistance with a mean total knowledge score of 11.4 out of 14. Of note, 76% of the respondents mistakenly believed that antibiotic resistance is the result of the body becoming resistant to antibiotics. Only 12% of the respondents were found to have poor knowledge in the study. Misconceptions in regards to the use of antibiotics for conditions related to viral illnesses was noticed among the respondents in our study. Thus,
improving knowledge on antibiotics is crucial to address those beliefs.