A cross-sectional survey to assess the drug disposal practices of unused and expired medicines among lay public visiting a tertiary care hospital in an urban metropolis
{"title":"A cross-sectional survey to assess the drug disposal practices of unused and expired medicines among lay public visiting a tertiary care hospital in an urban metropolis","authors":"R. Munshi, Alisha S. Dhiman, M. Maurya","doi":"10.25259/ijpp_486_2022","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"\n\nA cross-sectional survey was conducted to evaluate the knowledge, awareness and practice among the lay public regarding storage and disposal of unused and expired medicines.\n\n\n\nThis was an observational, cross-sectional, single-centre and questionnaire-based survey. After obtaining Institutional Ethics Committee approval, the study was conducted using a pre-validated structured questionnaire distributed among the lay public visiting a tertiary care hospital located in an urban metropolitan city.\n\n\n\nFour hundred of 720 individuals visiting the tertiary care hospital participated in the survey. The results revealed that 75% had never referred to any sources to get the correct information about the proper and safe disposal of medicines and had no knowledge regarding the same. About 12.75% of study participants reported that they were educated regarding the disposal of medicines by their treating physicians (RR: 0.71 [95% CI: 0.51–0.99]) when compared with the other sources of information (18%) with statistically significant contribution made by the physicians (p<0.05). About 67% of the public stored their medicines at room temperature. Majority (83.75%) of the study participants reported that they disposed unused and expired drugs in the dustbin. Only 42.5% of the public knew the detrimental effect of improper drug disposal on human health and our ecosystem. In addition, 80% (320/400) of the participants confirmed that, given the option, they would prefer to return the unused or expired drugs to the pharmacy shops from where the medicines were purchased.\n\n\n\nThere is a need to educate drug consumers/general public about safe and proper disposal of unused/ expired medicines. Health-care professionals, governments and policymakers should offer training to educate the general public about Indian regulations for safe disposal of unused/expired medicines.\n","PeriodicalId":13367,"journal":{"name":"Indian journal of physiology and pharmacology","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2023-03-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Indian journal of physiology and pharmacology","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.25259/ijpp_486_2022","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q4","JCRName":"Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutics","Score":null,"Total":0}
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Abstract
A cross-sectional survey was conducted to evaluate the knowledge, awareness and practice among the lay public regarding storage and disposal of unused and expired medicines.
This was an observational, cross-sectional, single-centre and questionnaire-based survey. After obtaining Institutional Ethics Committee approval, the study was conducted using a pre-validated structured questionnaire distributed among the lay public visiting a tertiary care hospital located in an urban metropolitan city.
Four hundred of 720 individuals visiting the tertiary care hospital participated in the survey. The results revealed that 75% had never referred to any sources to get the correct information about the proper and safe disposal of medicines and had no knowledge regarding the same. About 12.75% of study participants reported that they were educated regarding the disposal of medicines by their treating physicians (RR: 0.71 [95% CI: 0.51–0.99]) when compared with the other sources of information (18%) with statistically significant contribution made by the physicians (p<0.05). About 67% of the public stored their medicines at room temperature. Majority (83.75%) of the study participants reported that they disposed unused and expired drugs in the dustbin. Only 42.5% of the public knew the detrimental effect of improper drug disposal on human health and our ecosystem. In addition, 80% (320/400) of the participants confirmed that, given the option, they would prefer to return the unused or expired drugs to the pharmacy shops from where the medicines were purchased.
There is a need to educate drug consumers/general public about safe and proper disposal of unused/ expired medicines. Health-care professionals, governments and policymakers should offer training to educate the general public about Indian regulations for safe disposal of unused/expired medicines.
期刊介绍:
Indian Journal of Physiology and Pharmacology (IJPP) welcomes original manuscripts based upon research in physiological, pharmacological and allied sciences from any part of the world.