The aim of this questionnaire is to evaluate the tendency and practices of physicians regarding the proper use of antibiotics, using a self-administered questionnaire for physicians.

Only 31% of the interviewed physicians depend totally on culture results for antibiotic prescription (Table 4.20), while 6% of them stated that they do not request culture and sensitivity as a basis for antimicrobial treatment. The majority of physicians (63%) stated that they sometimes depend on culture and sensitivity. This result is confusing but could be explained by the lack of trust on the laboratory results as shown in table 4.21, wherein, only 40% of physicians have admitted that they trust microbiology results. This raises a basic question, is there a justification from the physician point of view for being skeptical about the competence of the local laboratories? In order to have some answers, further investigation may be required.

High percentage of physician used vancomycin for patient treatment (Figure 4.12) and this may explain why high percentage of resistance was observed in hospitalized patients.

About 10% of the interviewed physicians used antimicrobials in treating uncomplicated viral infections (figure 4.11). This result suggests that there are physicians who over prescribe or abuse antimicrobials and these could be considered important factors for inappropriate antibiotic prescription, therefore, contributing to the growing problem of antimicrobial resistance.

Eighty two out of 100 of the interviewed physicians used vancomycin in treating their patients, 73 of them used it for various gram positive infections and 9 of them used it to treat gram negative infections (table 4.23). Few physicians stated that they use vancomycin to treat gram negative bacteria which could be an indication of miss use of the antibiotic in local hospitals indicating the need to review hospital antimicrobials therapy protocols and initiate continuous educational programs for physicians.