PHP80 Effectiveness of Multidisciplinary Perspective Intervention with Community Involvement in Decreasing Antibiotic Sales in Village Groceries in Thailand

Abstract

OBJECTIVES: To evaluate a Multidisciplinary Perspectives Intervention with Community Involvement (MPI&CI) which was implemented to reduce antibiotics sales in village groceries which were illegal based on Thai Drug Act (1967). METHODS: MPI&CI was developed based on information obtained from focus groups that included multidisciplinary stakeholders. The intervention consisted of 1) communication about antibiotic knowledge; 2) investigation of availability of antibiotics in groceries; and 3) informing grocery owners when antibiotics were found for sale in their groceries. Community leaders in the intervention group were trained in a one-day workshop to implement MPI&CI in their villages. A quasi-experiment with pretest posttest measurement was conducted to assess the effect of MPI&CI. Data were collected from 20 villages in one district in Mahasarakham Province (intervention group), and in another 20 villages in a different district in the same province (comparison group). A generalized linear mixed model poisson regression with repeated measures was used to evaluate the effectiveness of MPI&CI. RESULTS: The results indicated that the intervention was effective at reducing the number of antibiotics available for sale in groceries. Groceries in the intervention group had 87% fewer antibiotics available at post-intervention compared with preintervention (relative rate 0.13, 95% CI 0.07, 0.23), while the control group had only an 8% reduction in antibiotic availability (relative rate 0.92, 95% CI 0.88, 0.97) between the two time periods. CONCLUSIONS: This study suggested that community involvement during development and implementation of the intervention is an effective approach for reducing antibiotics sales in village groceries in Thailand. Further study should be developed to assess the sustainability and long-term effectiveness of MPI&CI.