Rising tides of resistance: evaluation of healthcare workers awareness regarding artificial intelligence to combat antimicrobial resistance in Pakistan

Abstract

Objective: To determine awareness score regarding the involvement of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to fight against Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) among the HealthCare Workers of the South and Central Punjab, Pakistan by structured questionnaire to provide actionable educational initiatives and policy recommendations.

Methods: This descriptive cross-sectional survey was done among the HealthCare Workers of South and Central Punjab, Pakistan, between August 01, 2022 and January 31, 2023. The study limited to Multan and Lahore cities of South and central Punjab, Pakistan. The study is approved by the institutional ethics review board of Nishtar Medical University Multan. A self-created questionnaire was used for collecting data. Version VII of GraphPad Prism was used for the analytical analysis. An independent t-test and analysis of variance (ANOVA) were employed to verify significance among different parameters of study. A p-value of less than 0.05 was utilized to validate statistical significance.

Results: During the study, 401 participants completed the online survey. The data findings indicate that women 275 (68.6%) was majority of the respondents between the age group range 21 – 40. Most of the HealthCare Workers 200 (49.9%) had done post graduation and fall among the category of Certified Professional Doctors and Researchers. Moreover, majority of the partakers 225 (56.1%) lived in Lahore city. The significant correlation of Total Awareness Score (TAS) among Socio-demographic parameters was analyzed. Post graduate HealthCare Workers (P-value 0.0001) and certified professional doctors/researchers (P-value 0.0001) had higher awareness score.

---Continue