Table 3 Exemplar quotes from the FGDs

Perceived seriousness

Q1: “But I think it’s a bit like climate change also in the sense that it’s not so urgent ... you do not notice the changes now or so, the threats now, but ... when it breaks out… [then] one may regret it or realize that it is something important. So, it’s not like a tsunami in the sense that it’s immediate.”

G1, W4

Q4: “…I know too little about these multi-resistant (bacteria), but you’re afraid of it, afraid to get them and suffer yourself, and afraid that… what would it be like if I couldn’t take any antibiotics?”

G1, W3

Perceived susceptibility

Q2: “By contrast, in other countries ... I know quite a lot of people abroad ... they take antibiotics several times a year. That’s where I feel the problem lies, perhaps not really in Sweden, but in what the others do.”

G3, W3

Q3: “I’ve thought of this as a reason to just buy Swedish meat because it feels like it’s more controlled and it’s more certain that there are no drugs left.”

G1, M1

Perceived benefits

Q6: “To use them right when they really need to use them, that they don’t do it unnecessarily so they don’t get any type of anxiety or kind of negative feelings when it’s right to do it.”

G2, M1

Q7: “Yes, it feels like a good compromise. I go abroad but I vaccinate first. Everyone is happy.”

G2, W3

Perceived barriers

Q5: “... then one pumps up antibiotics more and more when it may be possible to cure in another way, but because it works so well, one takes antibiotics and it has become natural to take them on many occasions ... and therefore it has become overused, actually. It has become something negative for something that has been very good.”

G1, W1

Q8: “To put society’s best before oneself becomes harder and harder.”

G1, M3

Q9: “…too easy to take, from the perspective of being too easy for both a doctor who is a bit fed up with his job and the patient who wants to recover quickly.”

G1, W2

Q10: “[M]y basic problem with antibiotics, it’s still that no one in the world takes responsibility right now, it seems, and then it doesn’t matter how much we do in Sweden ... well, a little bit but it’s kind of minimal.”

G3, W3

Perceived self-efficacy

Q11: “But if you have such responsibility, it kind of includes some kind of sacrifice… For example, Thailand is a very popular destination now at Christmas. But Thailand is one of the premier sources of antibiotic resistance in the world; you should not really go there if one takes this somewhat seriously.”

G4, M1

Q12: “It is difficult to be the one who refrains or stands by the one who refrains, but that ... yes, it is absolutely necessary.”

G1, M3

Cues to action

Q13: “...some global agreement, because then you get more encouraged. […] Feeling that it does matter the little I do…”

G1, W2

Q14: “Then we of course should… like you state, discipline ourselves in society not to demand… to the same extent ask for antibiotics as soon we get nauseous or get a cold and so on. So I believe we are obliged to, as you say, enlightment, to inform, influence people. You can influence in many ways, not just through repetitive TV commercials, but maybe in many other informative ways.”

G3, M2