Non-Prescription Antibiotic Use For People Aged 15 Years Or Older For Cough In China: A Community-Based Survey

Abstract Background Non-prescription antibiotic use at community is a main driver of antimicrobial resistance. Cough is a common condition and prevalent in all communities, including China. This study aims to investigate the non-prescription antibiotic use for cough in China and explore to which extent antibiotic use knowledge was correctly instructed in communities.Methods A probability-proportionate-to-size (PPS) sampling method was adopted to survey from all 14 communities in Yiwu city, China. All participants were investigated by face-to-face interview on Portable Android Devices (PADs). The continuous variables were presented by mean and standard deviation (SD) or medium and inter-quartile range (IQR). The categorical variables were presented using percentage or constituent ratio. Chi-square test for univariate analysis and logistic regression for multivariate analysis were conducted to assess the odds ratios (ORs) and 95% confidence intervals (CIs), respectively.Results A total of 3034 respondents across the 14 communities and the 50 natural villages/streets completed all key items of the questionnaire. Of 2400 (79.10%) respondents stated that they experienced cough in the past 12 months with the medium age of 36.5 (IQR: 26-49) and 12.21% (293/2400) respondents had the non-prescription antibiotic use behavior. Among those 293 respondents, the proportion of non-prescription antibiotic use for cough peaked at around 16% among people aged 30-39 years old. The major sources of antibiotics were pharmacy (77.70%) and/or family storage (43.92%). As for antibiotic knowledge in 3034 participants, 61.8% participants had minimal knowledge on broad-spectrum antibiotic and 53.76% were not familiar about the effects of joint use.Conclusions Non-prescription antibiotics use for cough is prevalent in the community, especially among people in their thirties. Strengthened drug purchase regulation and well-trained professional pharmacists would be promising alternatives to ameliorate AMR. Moreover, penetrating antibiotics knowledge to common citizens and is an urgent task to alleviate antimicrobial resistance. Therefore, proactive policies and regulations should be made to improve current situations.