Antimicrobial Resistance, Healthcare-Associated Infections, and Environmental Microbial Contamination: Second Edition

A special issue of Healthcare (ISSN 2227-9032). This special issue belongs to the section "Environmental Factors and Global Health".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 31 December 2024 | Viewed by 1011

Special Issue Editors

Department of Medical, Surgical and Experimental Sciences, University of Sassari, 07100 Sassari, Italy
Interests: public health; environmental health; healthcare-associated infections; indoor air quality; infectious diseases; nosocomial infections
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

We are organizing a Special Issue entitled “Antimicrobial Resistance, Healthcare-Associated Infections, and Environmental Microbial Contamination” in Healthcare, which is an interdisciplinary, peer-reviewed, open access journal in the area of healthcare systems, industry, technology, policy, and regulation, published monthly online by MDPI. More information about the journal can be found at: https://www.mdpi.com/journal/healthcare.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), nosocomial infections are the most frequent adverse event in healthcare delivery worldwide. In particular, hundreds of millions of patients are affected by healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) worldwide each year, leading to significant mortality and financial losses for health systems.
Among the main solutions to contrast nosocomial infection, beyond implementing standard precautions (e.g., best hand hygiene practices), improving staff education and accountability, correctly applying basic precautions during invasive procedures, environmental monitoring, and the appropriate use of antimicrobials play an important role. In this regard, on the one hand, environmental monitoring is a useful tool for assessing the effectiveness and efficiency of the measures adopted to control the risk of infection; on the other, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is considered one of the top 10 global public health threats facing humanity, which is strongly related to drug misuse and overuse both in nosocomial and community environments.

We welcome the submission of reviews, original research articles, short communications, editorial letters, systematic reviews, case studies, and other kinds of articles targeting any of these core research questions and beyond.

Dr. Marco Dettori
Dr. Maria Dolores Masia
Guest Editors

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 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

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. Healthcare is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly 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 2700 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.

Keywords

  • nosocomial infections
  • healthcare-associated infections
  • antimicrobial resistance
  • environmental microbial contamination
  • indoor air quality
  • air monitoring
  • surface monitoring
  • surgical site infections
  • hand hygiene

Published Papers (1 paper)

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Research

12 pages, 495 KiB  
Article
Knowledge, Attitudes, and Practices of Parents in the Use of Antibiotics: A Case Study in a Mexican Indigenous Community
by Ana María González-Villoria, Alma Delia García Quiroz, Edgar Ulises Osorio Guzmán, José Carlos Suarez-Herrera and Roberto Ariel Abeldaño Zuñiga
Healthcare 2024, 12(3), 294; https://doi.org/10.3390/healthcare12030294 - 24 Jan 2024
Viewed by 707
Abstract
The rise and spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria have become a global health problem. At the community level, bacterial resistance has been linked to antibiotic misuse practices. These practices are related to social factors such as education level, poverty, ethnicity, and use of traditional [...] Read more.
The rise and spread of antibiotic-resistant bacteria have become a global health problem. At the community level, bacterial resistance has been linked to antibiotic misuse practices. These practices are related to social factors such as education level, poverty, ethnicity, and use of traditional medicine. Through a survey, this study aims to analyse the knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) of antimicrobial use, in an indigenous community in the south of Oaxaca, Mexico. It was observed that the population had a low socioeconomic profile, poor access to healthcare services, low academic level, little knowledge of antibiotics, the use of traditional medicine, and proper attitudes and practices regarding antibiotics use. Therefore, social factors are related to bacterial resistance only if they make the population prone to the use of antimicrobials. Lack of medical access and cultural factors drives this population to use ancestral alternatives such traditional medicine to treat conditions that in other contexts could be treated with antibiotics. This is an example of how the population can reduce the consumption of antimicrobials in infections if they have a reliable alternative that improves their symptoms. Full article
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