The impact of medical and dental education on student antimicrobial resistance literacy in Croatia.

Abstract

Background and objectives: Antimicrobial resistance is a pressing public health concern in Croatia, where antibiotic consumption exceeds the European average. Assessing the impact of education on antimicrobial resistance literacy among future prescribers is a priority, yet parallel evidence from both medicine and dentistry remains limited. Here we evaluated the effect of curriculum-based education on antimicrobial resistance literacy among Croatian medical and dental students across all study years.

Methods: We used a cross-sectional survey to assess dental and medical students' attitudes towards antibiotics and antimicrobial resistance. Domains included perceptions, knowledge, confidence to prescribe and educational interest. Descriptive statistics were used coupled with statistical testing for comparison across study years.

Results: A total of 692 responses were collected. Antimicrobial resistance was selected as one of the top global priorities by both medical and dental students. While AMR was broadly recognized as a global challenge, significant knowledge gains across study years were more pronounced in dental than in medical students, particularly from year 1 to subsequent years. Over 58% of final-year medical students reported feeling patient-imposed pressure to prescribe antibiotics. For fifth- and sixth-year students, a marked difference in patient communication was observed as >60% of medical students reported discussing antimicrobial resistance with patients very often, compared with only 10% of dental students.

Conclusions: We showed a positive effect of education throughout the study years in both medicine and dentistry, with more evident effects in the latter. High reported pressures to prescribe coupled with a gap in communication practices were observed.