Department of Pharmacy Administration and Clinical Pharmacy, School of Pharmacy, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China.
Center for Drug Safety and Policy Research, Xi'an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China.
Front Public Health. 2024 Mar 15;12:1357107. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1357107. eCollection 2024.
The current study aimed to assess the relation between multi-dimension poverty, treatment-seeking behavior, and antibiotic misuse among urinary tract infection (UTI) patients.
A cross-sectional approach was utilized to recruit patients who had a history of UTI in the previous month from two provinces of Pakistan. The treatment-seeking behavior and antibiotic misuse data were collected on a self-developed questionnaire, whereas the poverty data were collected on a modified multi-dimension poverty index (MPI). Descriptive statistics were applied to summarize the data. The logistic regression analysis was carried out to assess the association of multi-dimension poverty with patient treatment-seeking behavior and antibiotic misuse.
A total of 461 participants who had UTI symptoms in the previous month were recruited. Most of the participants in the severely deprived stage treated the UTI ( < 0.001); however, there was a high proportion of the participants who consulted with friends and family for UTI treatment ( < 0.001). The patients with deprivation status (deprived and severely deprived) were less associated with formal consultation. The poorer subgroups were less likely to practice antibiotic course completion.
The current study highlighted that poverty plays an important role in antibiotic misuse. Poorer subgroups were associated with informal consultations and the incompletion of the antibiotic course. Further studies are needed to explore the potential role of poverty in treatment-seeking behavior and antibiotic misuse.
本研究旨在评估多维贫困与尿路感染（UTI）患者的求医行为和抗生素滥用之间的关系。
采用横断面研究方法，从巴基斯坦的两个省份招募过去一个月有 UTI 病史的患者。在自行设计的问卷上收集了求医行为和抗生素滥用数据，而在修改后的多维贫困指数（MPI）上收集了贫困数据。应用描述性统计来总结数据。采用逻辑回归分析评估多维贫困与患者求医行为和抗生素滥用之间的关联。
共招募了 461 名过去一个月有 UTI 症状的参与者。大多数处于极度贫困阶段的参与者会治疗 UTI（<0.001）；然而，有很大一部分参与者会向朋友和家人咨询 UTI 治疗方法（<0.001）。处于贫困和极度贫困状态的患者与正式咨询的相关性较低。贫困程度较低的亚组更不可能完成抗生素疗程。
本研究强调了贫困在抗生素滥用中起着重要作用。贫困程度较低的亚组与非正规咨询和抗生素疗程不完成有关。需要进一步研究来探讨贫困在求医行为和抗生素滥用中的潜在作用。
