More than a third of adults in the UK either don’t know or are misinformed about antibiotics, what they can treat and when they should be taken, according to a study.
The research, conducted by healthcare company Abbott, found that 38 per cent of those surveyed wrongly believed that the typical cold, a cough, flu-like illnesses or upper respiratory tract infections were generally treatable with a course of antibiotics – despite 90 per cent of such infections being untreatable by antibiotics because they were self-limiting viral infections.
While nearly two thirds (63 per cent) say they would prefer to get antibiotics only when they were really needed, there was a current lack of awareness about them. Crucially, while 60 per cent of patients trusted their doctor’s opinion on when they needed antibiotics, 11 per cent said they would like antibiotics when they felt sick, just to be on the safe side, regardless of whether they needed them.
