The Rate of Adherence to Antibiotics and Reasons for Non-adherence among the Public

Aim: Poor adherence to antibiotics is common and related to poorer clinical outcomes such as increasing the bacterial resistance. To explore the rate of adherence to antibiotics and to know the reasons that lead to antibiotic non-adherence among the public.

Methodology: This is a retrospective study include an online questionnaire survey for the participants who were prescribed oral antimicrobial drugs during the last year. The data was collected and analyzed using Excel sheet software and the Descriptive data were presented by frequencies and percentages.

Results: The majority of the respondents stated that they sometimes forget to take their antibiotics. Moreover, 78.3% of them said that sometimes they forget to carry their drugs when they go out. They reported many reasons for noncompliance but the major reasons were “they do not need to continue treatment once the condition improves” followed by “they are too busy in study or work”.

Conclusion: Numerous factors lead to antibiotic noncompliance, but the main reasons were related to the public knowledge and attitude. Therefore, antimicrobial stewardship programs should focus on the patient education to solve the problem of non-compliance.