Knowledge, attitude, and practices regarding antimicrobial resistance among medical students in a tertiary care center, Puducherry—An analytical cross-sectional study

Introduction: Antibiotics being the life saver in many situations of emergencies has created the irrational use due to the change in pattern of prescribing and treatment. Health professionals play a key role in the fight against antibiotic resistance because they play a part in prescribing antibiotics during routine clinical practice as well as in promoting health education, particularly by encouraging patients to adhere to therapies and avoid self-medication. Unfortunately, the inappropriate prescription of antibiotics by some health professionals has proven to be a constant problem. The main lacunae faced are the absence of capacity building in understanding the prescribing practices, so an initiative was taken to understand the knowledge, attitude, and practices among the medical students. Methodology: The study was an analytical cross-sectional study involving all the medical students who consented to participate. A prevalidated standard questionnaire was used to assess the knowledge, attitude, and practices in antimicrobial resistance, and data were collected, analyzed, and presented as descriptive and inferential statistics. Results: Out of the 210 medical students, 61.4% were female and 38.6% were male. A maximum of students, around 60% belonged to the third year. About 93.3% were aware of antimicrobial resistance, but only 46.2% were aware of the alarming rise of the resistance, and only 74.3% had taken the complete prescribed course. Conclusion: There are many lacunae in practicing theory-based knowledge into practice-based knowledge among the medical students. So, capacity building with tutorials and educating about the prescription practices by means of integration lectures to students will serve the purpose.