Investigation of the knowledge, attitude and performance of the physicians in regard to rational antibiotic prescription

Excessive use or misuse of antibiotics leads to important consequences such as increased cost of treatment, bacterial resistance, treatment failure, drug toxicity and increased morbidity and mortality. Use of guidelines can result in increased knowledge of the physicians and decreased prescription of antibiotics with resultant change in the attitudes of the physicians towards this policy.
This cross-sectional study included 356 physicians and was conducted in Sanandaj in 2015. The sampling method was census. The final questionnaire included 7 questions to assess knowledge, 18 questions to measure attitudes, (by means of a 5-point Likert Scale from very strong agreement to very strong disagreement), and 12 questions to assess performance. The reliability of the questionnaire was 54%. Using SPSS20 software, frequency and mean score of the questions were calculated.
Among 356 questionnaires, 44.2% were filled out by specialists and 45.2% by the physicians who had graduated more than seven years ago. 56% of the physicians chose the correct answer for the questions on knowledge, and 25% of the physicians had knowledge about antibiotic resistance. 97.3% of the physicians agreed that antibiotics in our country have been used in excess. In this study, 233 (65.5%) physicians had high knowledge and self-confidence and 19.7% expressed low or lack of self-confidence about antibiotic prescription. WHO guideline and antibiotic guideline had been considered useful by 56% and 54.5% of the participants respectively. 49.9% of the physicians had not participated in any training course on antibiotic prescription. The highest and lowest frequency rates about sources of knowledge on antibiotic prescription belonged to internet (63.2%) and information provided by pharmaceutical companies (30.3%) respectively.
Considering the average level of knowledge of the doctors on antibiotic prescription and lack of participation of half of the subjects in training courses on antibiotic prescription after, attention to training courses with proper planning is recommended.