Influence of demographic factors on antibiotic prescription behaviour of veterinarians

Abstract

The prevalence of multidrug-resistant organisms and the infections caused by these are rising while on the other hand development of new lucrative therapeutic area by pharmaceutical companies is abandoned. Therefore, rigorous strategies are necessary to preserve the valuable and still working antimicrobials for next generations. In order to understand the role of antimicrobial resistant (AMR) bacteria in veterinary medicine, improved monitoring of antibiotic use in food-producing animals is already implanted. Only monitoring antibiotic use is not enough to understand the motivation behind prescription behaviour of farm animal veterinarians, which is vital to identify potential key motivators and barriers to enhance a more prudent antibiotic use. In this study the influence of demographic factors on prescription behaviour are analysed. A large dataset on demographic factors on personal level, like gender, employment status, place of graduation, year of graduation and on practice level, like postal code area, is made with the use of public data. (n=1077) An other demographic factor is type of practice, which is collected with the use of an online survey. (n=1055) These datasets are analysed for possible relationship between the demographic factor and prescription level.