Evaluation of antibiotics returned for safe disposal during and after a community pharmacy antibiotic amnesty campaign.

Background: Community pharmacies in England offer convenient and safe disposal of unwanted medicines, including antimicrobials, and better uptake of this service could limit environmental antimicrobial resistance. However, there is limited information on the extent and nature of antibiotic returns to community pharmacies. The impact of an antibiotic amnesty campaign promoting antibiotic disposal through community pharmacies was evaluated with the intention of collecting detailed information on the antibiotics returned.

Methods: An antibiotic amnesty campaign was delivered by community pharmacies in the Midlands (England) with an audit of returned antibiotics conducted in 19 community pharmacies in Leicestershire. Detailed information on antibiotics returned for disposal was gathered during the month-long amnesty campaign and again 3 months later in the same pharmacies.

Results: Antibiotics accounted for 3.12%-3.35% of all returned medicines. The amnesty campaign led to a significant increase in defined daily doses of returned antibiotics compared to the post-amnesty period (P = 0.0165), but there was no difference in the overall number of returned medicines. Penicillins were the most commonly returned antibiotics in both periods (29.3% and 42.5% of packs, respectively), while solid oral dose formulations predominated. A total of 36.6% of antibiotics returned during the amnesty period were expired, increasing to 53.4% in the post-amnesty period. Amnesty conversations had a significant impact on the number of antibiotic returns but campaign posters did not.

Conclusions: Antibiotic conversations can increase the amount of antibiotics returned to community pharmacies for safe disposal, and passive campaign materials had limited impact. More research is needed to identify the most effective interventions to increase returns.