RT Journal Article
T1 Physicians' attitudes and knowledge concerning antibiotic prescription and resistance: questionnaire development and reliability
A1 Rodrigues, António Teixeira
A1 Ferreira, Mónica
A1 Roque, Fátima
A1 Falcão, Amílcar
A1 Ramalheira, Elmano
A1 Figueiras Guzmán, Adolfo
A1 Herdeiro, Maria Teresa Ferreira
K1 Attitudes
K1 Knowledge
K1 Antibiotic resistance
K1 Questionnaire
K1 Reliability
AB BackgroundUnderstanding physicians’ antibiotic-prescribing behaviour is fundamental when it comes to improving antibiotic use and tackling the growing rates of antimicrobial resistance. The aim of the study was to develop and validate -in terms of face validity, content validity and reliability- an instrument designed to assess the attitudes and knowledge underlying physician antibiotic prescribing.MethodsThe questionnaire development and validation process comprised two different steps, namely: (1) content and face validation, which included a literature review and validation both by physicians and by Portuguese language and clinical psychology experts; and (2) reliability analysis, using the test-retest method, to assess the questionnaire’s internal consistency (Cronbach’s alpha) and reproducibility (intraclass correlation coefficient - ICC). The questionnaire includes 17 items assessing attitudes and knowledge about antibiotic prescribing and resistances and 9 items evaluating the importance of different sources of knowledge. The study was conducted in the catchment area covered by Portugal’s Northern Regional Health Administration and used a convenience sample of 61 primary-care and 50 hospital-care physicians.ResultsResponse rate was 64 % (49 % to retest) for primary-care physicians and 66 % (60 % to retest) for hospital-care physicians. Content validity resulted in 9 changes to professional concepts. Face validity assessment resulted in 19 changes to linguistic and interpretative terms. In the case of the reliability analysis, the ICC values indicated a minimum of fair to good reproducibility (ICC > 0.4), and the Cronbach alpha values were satisfactory (α > 0.70).ConclusionsThe questionnaire developed is valid -in terms of face validity, content validity and reliability- for assessing physicians’ attitudes to and knowledge of antibiotic prescribing and resistance, in both hospital and primary-care settings, and could be a very useful tool for characterising physicians’ antibiotic-prescribing behaviour.
PB BMC
YR 2016
FD 2016
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10347/22926
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10347/22926
LA eng
NO Teixeira Rodrigues, A., Ferreira, M., Roque, F. et al. Physicians’ attitudes and knowledge concerning antibiotic prescription and resistance: questionnaire development and reliability. BMC Infect Dis 16, 7 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12879-015-1332-y
NO This work was supported by the Foundation for Science & Technology(Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia - FCT), Portuguese Ministry ofEducation & Science [PTDC/SAU-ESA/105530/2008] and co-financed byFundo Europeu de Desenvolvimento Regional (FEDER) through thePrograma Operacional Factores de Competitividade (COMPETE) Program
DS Minerva
RD 26 abr 2026