Summary
This study carried out an evaluation of antibiotics resistance awareness, with a focus on the social dilemma that accompanies implementation of control measures. This social dilemma is the conflicting interest of making use of antimicrobials for self help, leading to overuse, and the negative impact this individual use has on public health, particularly by worsening general antimicrobial resistance. The study was carried out across eight countries. The result showed only about 20% of the surveyed population were aware of this dilemma. Almost 30% had a positive attitude towards solving the problem. A strength of this study is its unique approach at evaluating the social dilemma at the individual and general public level. However, as noted by the authors, the use of imaginary artificial intelligence (AI) physicians to observe the social dilemma may have affected the data given the varying perceptions of AI in different countries. in its data gathering may call the nature of its data to question.
The emergence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) caused by the excess use of antimicrobials has come to be recognized as a global threat to public health. There is a ‘tragedy of the commons’ type social dilemma behind this excess use of antimicrobials, which should be recognized by all stakeholders. To address this global threat, we thus surveyed eight countries/areas to determine whether people recognize this dilemma and showed that although more than half of the population pays little, if any, attention to it, almost 20% recognize this social dilemma, and 15–30% of those have a positive attitude toward solving that dilemma. We suspect that increasing individual awareness of this social dilemma contributes to decreasing the frequency of AMR emergencies.