www.ijbcp.com International Journal of Basic & Clinical Pharmacology | July 2019 | Vol 8 | Issue 7 Page 1628 IJBCP International Journal of Basic & Clinical Pharmacology Print ISSN: 2319-2003 | Online ISSN: 2279-0780 Original Research Article Study on knowledge, attitude and practices with respect to antibiotic use among medical students D. Bhavika*, A. Naga Teja Pavani, G. Meghavani, Aditya Jillella, Sameer Uz Zaman INTRODUCTION Resistance to antimicrobial agents is a major public health issue. With the development of new resistance mechanisms, treatment of common infectious diseases has become difficult, leading to an increase in morbidity and even mortality. The key factor leading to increasing rates of antimicrobial resistance is the overuse and misuse of antimicrobial agents in humans as well as in animals. Antibiotics since long have been protecting humanity from various infectious diseases. Lately, there has been rapid emergence of resistance due to overuse, inappropriate use (due to incorrect choice of agent, treatment indication and duration of treatment) and unprohibited/irrational use of antimicrobial agents in livestock to promote growth and prevent infections. 1 ABSTRACT Background: Antibiotic resistance has emerged as a serious global problem. Irrational prescribing of antibiotics is one of the key factors responsible for the development of antibiotic resistance. As today’s medical students will be the future prescribers their awareness regarding antibiotic resistance and rational prescribing of antibiotics is very much important. The main objective of the study was to evaluate the knowledge, attitude and practices of the medical students towards antibiotic use. Methods: A cross-sectional questionnaire-based study was conducted involving the medical students from all the semesters. A predesigned questionnaire was used to evaluate the knowledge, attitude and practices of the respondents. The response options were ‘yes’ or ‘no’ for some questions, and a 5 point Likert scale used to assess some questions. The data was analyzed using MS office Excel. Results: A total of 457 fully completed questionnaires from the respondents were evaluated. Majority of the respondents (70%) were females, and 91% of the respondents were aware of antibiotic resistance as a global problem. On analysis of score of questions assessing knowledge, 91% of respondents had attained a score in the range of 5-7. Majority (83%) of the respondents used antibiotics only on doctor’s prescription and 74% of the respondents had completed the prescribed course. Conclusions: The present study gives an insight on the knowledge, attitude and practices of medical students on antibiotic use, and can be used as a tool to plan educational strategies to improve the knowledge of the students regarding rational use of antibiotics. Keywords: Antibiotic use, Antibiotic resistance, Attitude, Knowledge, Medical students DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18203/2319-2003.ijbcp20192662 Department of Pharmacology, Kamineni Academy of Medical Sciences and Research Centre, Hyderabad, Telangana, India Received: 03 May 2019 Accepted: 31 May 2019 *Correspondence to: Dr. D. Bhavika, Email: bhavika_mb6 @yahoo.co.in Copyright: © the author(s), publisher and licensee Medip Academy. This is an open- access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non- Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non- commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.