SEDAR: App for Antibiotic Resistance Public Awareness

– Headed by Dr. Ummul Hanan Mohamad.

Picture Credit: Rawpixel.com / Freepik

SEDAR: Stop and End the Drastic Antibiotic Resistance

Although public is aware on the antibiotics effectiveness, their awareness on antibiotic resistance issue remains aloof. If no action is taken to curb the antibiotic resistance occurrences, we will be facing severe impacts such as higher medical costs, prolonged stay in healthcare facilities and increased risks of infection when common medical procedures are performed. Moreover, no new class of antibiotics is found for more than 40 years to date. Hence, SEDAR mobile application is aim to be the tool of conduct to address the antibiotic resistance issue by manoeuvring the public concern to the goal for better awareness.

INTRODUCTION OF RESEARCH

As we took for granted that the antibiotics has always been effective to cure some infections or diseases, we are now facing the detrimental effect of our actions – the antibiotic resistance. The effectiveness of the antibiotics or the ‘magic bullet’ in treating the diseases caused by bacteria are now decrementing to a point that we may soon be in similar situations as in the pre-antibiotic era – no antibiotics, increase risk of infections.

Therefore, to highlight this issue to the public eyes, we are in need of an effective tool. In agreement to that, mobile or smartphones are deemed to fit the criteria, being the everyday life tool in this digital era. Although numerous mobile app has been developed to convey the antibiotics info, but none are solely intended for awareness purposes.

Nevertheless, it is a huge challenge to change the perspective and the common habits of the public when involving serious issues such as the antibiotic resistance. Thus, SEDAR app, short for ‘Stop and End the Drastic Antibiotic Resistance’, is developed with the incorporation of gamification elements to drive the users’ engagement and motivation.

FINDINGS OF RESEARCH

Preliminary evaluation of the app showed that:
• when given a purpose, users had the tendency to improve (based on the findings of more than 50% users repeated the quest)
• when provided with feedback, users are able to improve their knowledge (based on the findings of at least 90% had improved scores after subsequent repeat of quest).

FUTURE WORKS

SEDAR app focuses to improve public awareness by concentrating on these two key points; antibiotics are solely effective in treating bacterial diseases and antibiotics medication should be finished to help prevent antibiotic resistance occurrences. It is noted that while antibiotic resistance cannot be prevented 100%, we may deter this situation to enable more discovery and strategies to put us ahead in the game of antibiotic resistance. To add, SEDAR app may serve as an initial awareness model to address other health issues concerning child vaccination, organ transplantation and healthy kidney awareness.