A qualitative content analysis exploring the portrayal of antibiotic use and antibiotic resistance in UK smallholding print media
A qualitative content analysis exploring the portrayal of antibiotic use and antibiotic resistance in UK smallholding print media
Open access
In our edition of: Oct 2025
In our categories of: farm animals
our summary:
Scott, C.D.A et al. (2025) A qualitative content analysis exploring the portrayal of antibiotic use and antibiotic resistance in UK smallholding print media. Frontiers in Veterinary Science, 12
The aims of this study were to investigate how the issues of antibiotic use (ABU) and antibiotic resistance (ABR) are communicated to smallholders in four publications and to develop recommendations for educational material aimed at smallholders to support antibiotic stewardship goals.
Four print media publications, two aimed at a broad readership and two aimed at specialist audiences (small holders keeping pigs or poultry), were selected for inclusion in the study. Material published between January 2015 and December 2019 on ABR and ABU was extracted for analysis. Key themes and sub-themes were identified, and content analysis was used to consider how and when themes and sub-themes appeared together.
129 articles were identified for inclusion in the analysis, three key themes were identified ‘antibiotic stewardship’, ‘antibiotics for livestock health’ and ‘problems are elsewhere’, with each theme having a number of sub-themes. Under the theme antibiotic stewardship, contributors to the publications described practices, and offered recommendations, that would contribute to good antibiotic stewardship, emphasised the importance of preventing the need for use of antibiotics, and encouraged responsible use of antibiotics by seeking advice from veterinary professionals. When considering ‘Antibiotics for livestock health’ the importance of antibiotics to protect animal welfare was stressed. Under ‘Problems are elsewhere’ contributors often attributed greater responsibility to the commercial farming sector or human medicine for the overuse of antibiotics and contribution to ABR than smallholders.
‘Antibiotic stewardship’ occurred alongside ‘Antibiotics for livestock health’ two-thirds of the time. However, analysis of reported instances of ABU showed that recommendations for good antibiotic stewardship such as seeking veterinary advice were not always implemented.
Recommendations for educational material include fact checking of articles, not encouraging inappropriate use and the potential use of case studies.
Limitations of the study include that it only examined print media and that some of the articles included were ten years old, given that behaviour-change around antibiotic use and farm animal antibiotic stewardship have changed significantly in recent years some of findings of this study may no longer be applicable to the current situation.
This study provides useful information on the way magazines for smallholders discuss the use of antibiotics and antibiotic resistance. It identifies potential barriers to antibiotic stewardship on small holdings and suggests recommendations for educational material that would encourage better antibiotic stewardship practices.
The following may also be of interest:
In the Spotlight: Responsible use of antibiotics in veterinary practice [RCVS Knowledge] [Online] Available from: https://infocus.rcvsknowledge.org/amr_responsible-use-of-antibiotics-in-veterinary-practice/ [Accessed 17 October 2025]
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