Antimicrobial Resistence Week ’18

Name of the activity: Antimicrobial Resistence Week ’18

Country/NMO: Hungary (HuMSIRC)

Program: Communicable Diseases

Type of the activity: Education. Education on health issues for specific societal groups, either in the form of projects (set of tasks for a certain group over a fixed period of time), events (something notable that happens) or conferences (form meeting about ideas related to a particular topic, usually over several days).

General description:

Last year, for the first time ever, our NMO has attempted to reach as many people as we could, both laymen members of the public as well as (semi-)professionals in the health sector.

Having had a general idea from last year’s programmes, we’ve set out to create booths, bring quizzes and rewards, as well as topic-related taglines. We’ve also created a brochure to give out, and an exhibition of posters on the different bacteria and their potential treatment, resistance, etc.

We’ve made it a priority to understand and reach our target groups in the best possible way. To ensure this, we created to separate sets of handouts and quizzes, not to under- or overestimate either target group: students at either at the Faculty of Health Sciences or of Medicine in Budapest.

The one major change we’ve implemented from last year stems from a deep understanding of the issue of antimicrobial resistance: we’ve targeted veterinary students as well, setting up a booth at their respective faculty building.

Focus area:

Reduce incidence of Antimicrobial Resistance

Problem statement:

When it comes to diseases,most people lack the understanding of disease(difference between bacteria and viruses,…)According to a WHO survey,64%are aware that AMR could affect them and their family SOMEHOW;76%think it’s their body that becomes resistant to antibiotics however and 64%think that common colds and the flu can be treated by them. When it comes to AMR,66%think that regularly taking prescribed antibiotics makes them immune to resistant pathogens. And 64% are sure doctors can solve it.

Target groups:

General population, Medical students, Healthcare Students, veterinary students

Beneficiaries:

General population, Medical students, Healthcare Students, Other Students, Doctors, Other health professionals

Objectives and indicators of success:

OBJECTIVES

Our main objectives were as follows

– educating as many people from the public (laymen) as we could possibly reach

– bettering the understanding of the issue (growing antimicrobial resistance across the globe) in students of a health-related field (whether it’d be the Faculty of Health Sciences or of Medicine at Semmelweis University OR that of Veterinary Science, a newly made contact and potential partner for further future cooperation)

– making sure we get the severity of the situation across to our target audience

– reaching those we ‘can’t get to in person’ through an exhibition of posters specifically made to summarize bacteria, their potential treatment, and, most importantly, growing resistance

SUCCESS INDICATORS

– number of handouts given out

– number of quizzes filled in (and number of prizes given out)

– number of people that approached our volunteers (an approximate estimation)

– these, compared to the previous year’s numbers

Methodology:

We had three major focus points.

Setting up booths where our volunteers gave in-depth information on the topic of antimicrobial resistance to those who were interested. Afterwards, these people each received a handout, with which they could deepen their understanding of the issue, ask questions from our well-prepared volunteers.

Having learnt as much as they possibly can in the short time we had to work with, they were given a quiz appropriately matching their level of knowledge on health sciences. This was our second approach. And those who reached a certain number of points, received, as a prize, a bottle of hand-sanitizer. 🙂

Our third platform was social media, as, having fewer members and thus, volunteers, our LCs apart from Budapest (Debrecen, Szeged, Pécs) could mainly operate on this one. They shared posters, programmes prepared by the WHO through their social media pages.

In the future, we’re also planning a series of lectures on AMR for the medical students.

Plans for evaluation:

Using our success indicators, we hope to be able to compare our results to last year’s programme, having collected the same data there as well. Beforehand, we wanted to make sure we learn from our previous experience: we leaned on the most successful practices – the quizzes, the handouts and the poster exhibition. Having ventured into new territory with the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, we also hoped to gain ground on establishing a professional relationship and sort of experiment with what needs to happen at this sight in the years to come.

As we’ve mentioned in our success indicators, we’re leaning on the number of people we reach (measured through the number of handouts and quizzes (prizes) given out) and the experience of our volunteers, which, unfortunately, cannot necessarily be measured in numbers.