Public knowledge, attitudes and practices surrounding antibiotic use and resistance in Cambodia

WHO's Global Action Plan on Antimicrobial Resistance includes as a priority to increase public education surrounding antibiotic use and resistance. Monitoring population-level antibiotic behaviours is crucial for informing intervention strategies, but data from a broad range of settings, particularly lower-resourced countries, are lacking.

We measured public knowledge, attitudes and practices regarding antibiotics and antibiotic resistance in Cambodia, providing baseline information against which to monitor the progress of future interventions.

Between September and October 2018, we conducted a household survey of knowledge, attitudes and practices related to antibiotic use in urban and rural populations of three Cambodian provinces: Phnom Penh, Siem Reap and Prey Veng. Response rates were respectively 79%, 86% and 86%.

Among the 2005 participants, we found high levels of awareness of terms relating to antibiotics (86.5%) and antibiotic resistance; most participants also recognized that antibiotic resistance is a problem (58.4%). However, few understood that antibiotics are effective only against bacterial infections (1.2%). We also found province-specific differences in participants' sources of antibiotics and their sources of AMR-related information. In regression analyses, more favourable antibiotic practice scores were associated with higher knowledge (β = 0.18; 95% CI: 0.14-0.22) and attitude (β = 0.16; 95% CI: 0.11-0.22) scores, as well as trust in healthcare sources to obtain antibiotics and antibiotic information.

This study highlights the importance of interventions and public communication on antibiotic use and resistance that is effectively targeted to the local context through trusted healthcare providers.