Master of Pharmacy students' knowledge and awareness of antibiotic use, resistance and stewardship

Antibiotic resistance has become a global public health concern. In this study, we investigated the knowledge and awareness of antibiotic use, resistance and stewardship, held by the pharmacy students currently studying at the University of Brighton.

This was a cross-sectional, online survey, and email invitations to participate were sent to all students attending our Master of Pharmacy (MPharm) course (n=583). Students' knowledge was assessed with 29 items; responses for these were totaled before comparison among students. Comparison of scores between groups of students was performed using the Kruskal-Wallis or the Mann-Whitney U test, as appropriate.

The response rate was 32%. The overall median knowledge score was 7.9. There was a statistically significant difference in knowledge scores between years of study (p=0.02), particularly between year of study 1 (7.6) and 4 (8.3). A statistically significant difference was found between the knowledge scores of male (8.4) and female (7.9) students (p=0.03). Most students believed a strong knowledge of antibiotics, and microbiology and infection control is important for their pharmacy careers and more than 90% agreed that antibiotic resistance will be a greater clinical problem in the future.

Although the MPharm students studied achieved good overall knowledge scores, a significant proportion showed a lack of understanding with regards to some important aspects of antibiotic resistance mechanisms, factors promoting the emergence and spread of antibiotic resistance, and antibiotic stewardship policies.