Patients, antibiotics and

Background and objectives: Patients with recurrent Methods: Ten interviews, conducted with rCDI patients based on open-ended questions, were analysed using qualitative content analysis. Results: All the respondents identified antibiotic treatment as a trigger of rCDI, but they were unaware of other important factors. They also reported receiving inadequate information, often entirely absent or delivered by healthcare professionals under great pressure, together with other barriers that prevented successful information transmission. In addition to a lack of proper information, they described self-created barriers, some of which were severely counterproductive or even harmful, such as avoiding healthcare when they were ill or not collecting prescribed antibiotics due to fear. Conclusions: The respondents were often left to seek information and develop explanatory models, strategies and behaviours for the future by themselves. We recommend more standardized and personalized patient information to support effective preventive behaviours and to foster a better understanding of one of the most important tools of modern medicine-antibiotics.