Interventions to Improve Antibiotic Use

Dear Colleagues,

Antibiotic resistance is one of the major public health problems world-wide. World Health Organization reports that the prevalence of resistance to antibiotics can reach values up to 70% for Streptococcus pneumoniae, which is the most common extra hospital pathogen, the cause of otitis media in children and invasive infections in adults. Furthermore, many of the most common pathogens become resistant to conventional antimicrobial treatment which involves the loss of efficiency and thus an increased use of combinations of broad spectrum. Association between consumption of antibiotics and spread of bacterial resistance is well established, so, improving the use of antibiotics is essential. Inappropriate use of antibiotics is currently regarded as the main determinant of such resistance. We welcome contributions based on interventions to improve the antibiotics use and we hope to receive manuscripts from a broad spectrum of geographical, cultural, and economic settings, which may include original research, review articles, case series, and opinion papers.

I would like to invite you to submit manuscripts covering in both qualitative and quantitative research across the following areas:

• Multifaceted educational interventions related to antibiotic prescribing, dispensing practices and use (e.g., patients and health care professionals)
• Implementation of campaigns, social media, policies, regulations, guidelines related to antibiotic prescribing, dispensing practices and use (e.g., analyses of factors determining the consume of antibiotics in different contexts)
• Intervention with inter-professional collaboration with support of eHealth tools (e.g. analyses and interventions promoting collaborative work between general practitioners, dentists, pharmacists, and nurses)

Prof. Maria Teresa Herdeiro
Dr. Fátima Roque
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Antibiotics is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2900 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.