## 3 Discussion  
To the best of our knowledge, this is the first nationwide mixed-method survey to provide contextual data on the association of part and full-time practicing community pharmacists' knowledge of antibiotic resistance and attitudes towards current prescribing/dispensing practices by community pharmacists [34; 41]. Most of the participants were from 59 out of 77 provinces in all regions of Thailand. It was generalisable and representative of community pharmacists broadly across the country. Overall, community pharmacists' knowledge of antibiotic resistance in this study was good. These findings align with previous research in Bangkok and Chonburi province as urban areas in Thailand using Knowledge, Attitude and Practice theory (KAP) [41]. Our study determined that less than 60% of the participants knew the consequences of dispensing antibiotics without a prescription, which can contribute to the development of antibiotic resistance and the inappropriate use of antibiotics by patients. Interestingly, only less than 4% of the participants chose the right answer to the question \"Antibiotics are indicated to reduce any kind of pain and inflammation\". However, it is important to acknowledge that in the local settings in Thailand, pain and inflammation are colloquially meant to describe possible infection [50]. This question might need to be further fine tuned to improve its validity from the content point of view. These findings reflected awareness of antibiotic AMR that might be identified as a barrier to antimicrobial stewardship and AMR surveillance [34]. Antimicrobial stewardship and AMR surveillance are needed by community pharmacists for accountability and preserving antibiotic efficacy and minimising AMR [52]. Awareness campaigns in community pharmacists should urgently be implemented through education interventions [34; 41]. A strength of this study was using the Discovery phase and the Dream phase of the Appreciative Inquiry (AI) theory. The Discovery phase signified the attitudes towards the actual experiences in antibiotic prescribing practices and antimicrobial stewardship in their community pharmacies. The community pharmacists expressed an acceptably high attitude. Regarding their appreciation and awareness of the current challenges of AMR in local practices, however, patients' knowledge about antibiotic resistance and implementation to support antibiotic stewardship by the Thai-FDA were mentioned. Antibiotics are relatively inexpensive, easily obtainable and widely available due to poor implementation of demand-supply regulations, as well as some community pharmacists' prescribing/dispensing practices, in Thailand [14]. These factors could influence the high demand and supply of antibiotics [8; 13; 14; 15; 16; 17; 22; 23; 24; 25]. The community pharmacists expressed their creative ideas through the Dream phase that public education and awareness need to be tailored when implementing interventions in the Thai context. Prohibiting antibiotic advertising via radio commercials and promoting antimicrobial resistance knowledge and understanding via radio commercials and social media was suggested as a potential way to stop inappropriate demand by patients. In addition, pharmacists contributed their ideas with aspirations to improve national practices on the necessity of enforcing the regulations of antibiotic prescribing practices and supply in community pharmacies. Inspections such as random audits and compulsory antibiotic inventory reports were shared as innovative interventions through the Dream phase for modifying and standardising the community prescribing practices. The community pharmacists mirrored the current antibiotic supply policy that most antimicrobials are widely available in pharmacies. Antibiotic re-classification was recommended for policing antibiotic supply structure. The Thai-FDA has yet to accelerate the ongoing re-classification of antibiotics.