Ethical Principles of Biomedicine Correlate with Prevalence of Antimicrobial Resistance

Abstract

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has and continues to pose both development & public health threats across the world. While the scourge is well disseminated globally, persons living in low- & middle-income countries (LMICs) are most at risk. In Kenya, AMR represents a pivotal driver of morbidity & mortality as infections that are resistant to antibiotics have continued to rise lately. Empirical data on the state of AMR in Kenya and other LMICs is conspicuously low or completely lacking. This has significantly muffled intervention strategies as explicit understanding of AMR faculties remains a bottleneck. We conducted a scoping review to understand the nexus between practice of ethical principles of biomedicine & occurrence of AMR. PRISMA guidelines were strictly referenced at every step of this review. PubMed, EMBASE & Cochrane databases were searched using google for relevant articles. A total of 187 articles were initially generated. Several filters were applied in order to develop a shortlist of the most relevant articles. They include: conformity to the stated study objective & research design, publication in highly refereed journal type, consistency with medical subject headings (MeSh) and lack of potential conflict of interest (CoI). Finally, a total of 5 articles were identified and the results they represent well synthesized. Balancing provisions of the practice of ethical principles of biomedicine by clinicians & other critical players remains an important challenge. A prescription & practice model that considers a balance of provisions of the four ethical principles of biomedicine should be developed and implemented. Empirical research should be continuously conducted to generate updated knowledge that informs progressive policy formulation and development of effective intervention strategies.