A research paper analysing public awareness of antimicrobial resistance has been named as one of the top 20 most downloaded papers in the prestigious British Journal of Health Psychology.
The research, led by Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) senior lecturer in psychology Dr Jo McParland, is entitled ‘What are the ‘active ingredients’ of interventions targeting the public’s engagement with antimicrobial resistance (AMR) and how might they work?’.
It was produced by academics including members of the GCU Safeguarding Health through Infection Prevention (SHIP) team and was among the most read papers between 2017 and 2018.
Changing public awareness of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global public health priority and a systematic review of interventions that targeted public AMR awareness and associated behaviour was previously conducted. The focus of this paper was to identify the active content of these interventions to examine how they work to change public attitudes and behaviour.
Lead author Dr McParland said: “I am delighted our paper has achieved this impact in the field of health psychology.
“We have used a novel approach to look at the content of these interventions, through looking for the presence of theory and techniques for changing knowledge and behaviour that might be present within the interventions to help explain how they work. The aim of the interventions was to increase public knowledge about AMR. Our analysis of the content of the interventions found this was commonly achieved through providing information about the health consequences of the misuse of antibiotics and providing information about how to take antibiotics appropriately.
We provide important signposts for future work to develop and report effective interventions in the field of AMR and other areas of health research that often fail to report the mechanisms of action within interventions”.
To access the full article follow this link: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29804314