Antimicrobial resistance to antibiotics: Health promotion programs and action evaluation

ABSTRACT

The significant rise in resistant antimicrobial strains to chemical drugs being recorded is increasingly an issue of concern as it means that once again bacterial infections are one of the biggest public health challenges.

Resistance to antibiotics as a natural evolutionary step of microorganisms is due to the irrational use of the former and translates into both clinical and economic and social parameters. International, European and national agencies have developed Action Plans to tackle this phenomenon.

A Health Promotion proposal, in order to be called complete, should include all three pillars, namely Health Education both within the Health Service and in the public in general, Health Protection by using measures and policies designed to promote the same ends and lastly Disease Prevention by increasing the readiness of the Health System and their ability to respond rapidly to any and all problems.

Likewise, a full proposal for evaluation of actions will range in the short term, as a direct response to the educational process, in the medium term, in a second year as a comparative evaluation of the present period with the analogous period before the implementation of the actions, and in the long term; as a decrease in the number of indicators that testify to an increasing trend in antimicrobial resistance.

Fighting the problem requires interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral cooperation today, as the situation is now so critical it leaves no room for delays.

Keywords: Antimicrobial resistance, health promotion, evaluation, combat actions