Attitude and perception of junior resident doctors' regarding antibiotic resistance - A pilot study

Objective:<bold> </bold>To analyze the attitude and perception of junior resident doctors' regarding antibiotic resistance and prescribing. Methods:<bold> </bold>This cross-sectional study was conducted in two tertiary care centres in the New Delhi during the months of May-June 2012. An email based questionnaire was emailed to all the junior residents (JRs) working in the clinical setting and all the responses obtained within 2 months were included in the study. Statistical analysis was done using SPSS v.17. Results:<bold> </bold>This email based questionnaire was forwarded to 80 JRs. 53 responses were deemed appropriate for analysis with response rate of 66.25%. Forty-nine JRs (92.45%) believed that antibiotic resistance is a problem in India while 38 JRs (71.7%) believed it is a problem in their hospital. 28 JRs (52.83%) had received training regarding antibiotic prescription in last 6 months while 25 (47.17%) had not received any training. 47 JRs (88.7%) believed that Medical Council should take strict actions prohibiting irrational use of antibiotics. Only 18 JRs (33.96%) said that Government of India should go ahead with proposed plan of restricting junior doctors from prescribing third and fourth generation antibiotics without Head of Department's permission. Conclusions:<bold> </bold>Most of the junior residents believe that antibiotic resistance is an emerging problem in their hospital as also nationally. There is a large unmet need of providing education to these residents.