Mandarin farmers' knowledge, attitudes, and practices related to antibiotic use in mandarin orchards and the presence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in mandarin orchard workers in Fang district, Chiang Mai province, Thailand

Research Article

International Journal of One Health, 9(2): 95-105

https://doi.org/10.14202/IJOH.2023.95-105

Mewika Hamtook¹, Parichat Ongartborirak¹, Aksara Thongprachum¹, Usanee Wattananandkul², and Warangkana Naksen¹

1. Faculty of Public Health, Chiang Mai University, Chiang Mai 50200, Thailand.
2. Department of Medical Technology, Faculty of Associated Medical Sciences, Chiang Mai University, Muang District, Chiang Mai 50200, Thailand.

Background and Aim: Inappropriate antibiotic use in the agricultural sector is a crucial driver of antibiotic resistance which is a global public health concern. Although there are many studies on antibiotic use in livestock production, studies on antibiotic use in crop production are relatively scarce. This study aimed to determine farmers' knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) toward antibiotic use in Mandarin orchard and investigate their associations with the antibiotic susceptibility patterns among Mandarin orchard farmers in Fang District, Chiang Mai Province, Thailand.

Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was conducted in Fang District between November and December 2021. The participants in this study were 151 farmers (farm owners and farm workers) in ten Mandarin orchards. All participants completed face-to-face interviews using a structured questionnaire. Nasal swabs were collected from 100 participants. The disk diffusion and staphylococcal chromosome cassette mec typing methods were used to test the antibiotic susceptibility of the isolates.

Results: All farmers involved in the activities related to antibiotic exposure, 39.7% prepared or mixed antibiotics, and 82.8% injected antibiotics into Mandarin trees. Overall, farmers in this study had moderate levels of knowledge and attitudes and good antibiotic use practices. There was a significant association between attitudes and practices (r = 0.312, p < 0.001). In the analysis of drug resistance of the bacterial isolates, Staphylococcus aureus was detected in 16 of 100 nasal swab samples, with resistance to penicillin (16/16), methicillin (cefoxitin) (1/16), and tetracycline (6/16).

Conclusion: This is the first report on farmers' and farm workers' KAP and antibiotic use in crop production, specifically Mandarin production. The findings of this research will help in developing plans and strategies to encourage the appropriate use of antibiotics and prevent antibiotic resistance or microbial resistance in plant production. Keywords: antibiotic use, attitudes, farmers, knowledge, mandarin orchard, practices.

Keywords: antibiotic use, attitudes, farmers, knowledge, mandarin orchard, practices.

How to cite this article: Hamtook M, Ongartborirak P, Thongprachum A, Wattananandkul U, and Naksen W (2023) Mandarin farmers' knowledge, attitudes, and practices related to antibiotic use in mandarin orchards and the presence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in mandarin orchard workers in Fang district, Chiang Mai province, Thailand, Int. J. One Health, 9(2): 95-105.

Received: 14-05-2023 Accepted: 22-08-2023 Published online: 26-09-2023

Corresponding author: Warangkana Naksen E-mail: warangkana.n@cmu.ac.th

DOI: 10.14202/IJOH.2023.95-105

Copyright: Hamtook, et al. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.