Attitudes towards the use and disposal of unused medications in two European Countries

Fenech, Cecilia; Rock, Luc; Nolan, Kieran; Morrissey, Anne

doi:10.1016/j.wasman.2012.12.018

Cited by 27 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…Lack of information regading medication disposal was strongly manifested in a survey study carried out by Fenech et al in the Maltese context in early 2012 which found that only 7% of Maltese respondents have ever been advised on the best way for medication disposal. 31 Fenech et al found that the least common source of information was through the family doctor as opposed to the current study whereby doctors were the second most common source of information. Bestowed information vis-à-vis the safe disposal of medications altered respondents' disposal practices in a study by Wieczorkiewicz et al 32 Therefore, provision of information by healthcare professionals should not be underestimated.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 87%

A cross-sectional survey of the Maltese general public on medication wastage

et al. 2016

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 87%

A cross-sectional survey of the Maltese general public on medication wastage

et al. 2016

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“…[24,25]. In a survey in European countries [23], 88% of the population failed to completely consume medications and kept them at their homes. It can be speculated that, if these unused medications are inappropriately disposed of, a high environmental load of pharmaceutical residues would be generated; therefore, enough attention should be paid to this kind of pollution source.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The initial draft of the questionnaire was developed based on published studies on disposal practices [15,18,19,20,22,23,24] as well as information about EPV [7,13,14,16]. A pharmacy researcher and a public health researcher were asked to appraise the content clarity, relevance, validity and conciseness of the items in the questionnaire.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Attitudes and Practice Regarding Disposal for Unwanted Medications among Young Adults and Elderly People in China from an Ecopharmacovigilance Perspective

et al. 2019

IJERPH

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Due to the expensive cost and uncertain effectiveness of environmental management options in eliminating pharmaceutical residues, recently, decreasing the emission of pharmaceutical pollutants from a drug administration perspective has been considered a hot area of research. As a kind of drug administration for the environment, ecopharmacovigilance (EPV) emphasizes the source control of pharmaceutical pollutants. Disposal of unwanted medicines has been considered as the easiest target for source control of pharmaceutical contamination. Here, we focused on public attitudes and practice regarding disposal of unwanted medicines from the EPV perspective among 365 Chinese university young adults and 206 elderly retirement home residents. The results showed that the majority of respondents had positive attitudes, but exhibited inadequate awareness and poor practice. In addition, the young-adult respondents were found to pay more attention to the environmental problems posed by pharmaceutical residues, and be more supportive of the EPV intervention predominantly performed by pharmaceutical industries and pharmacists. Therefore, it is urgent to establish the standard medicine disposal protocols and educate the general public on the best way for medication disposal under the principle of EPV in China, and efforts on environmentally-preferred drug disposal under EPV should target for the specific demographics.

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“…Furthermore, disposing expired medications in the garbage is the most commonly reported practice in various studies conducted in England [23], Lithuania [25], Serbia [26], Malta [27], Ireland [27,28], Romania [29], Cyprus [30], Poland [31], Pakistan [32,33], Bangladesh [34], India [35,36], Malaysia [37][38][39], Thailand [40], Hong Kong [41], China [42], Egypt [43], Ethiopia [44], Nigeria [45,46], Ghana [47], Kuwait [48,49], Qatar [50], Saudi Arabia [51], Israel [52], United States [53][54][55][56], Brazil [57,58], New Zealand [20], and Australia [19].…”

Section: Literature Review Of Some Reported Disposal Practices Aroundmentioning

confidence: 99%

Expired Medication: Societal, Regulatory and Ethical Aspects of a Wasted Opportunity

Alnahas

Yeboah

Fliedel

et al. 2020

IJERPH

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A massive volume of expired medications amasses annually around the world because of pharmaceutical overprescription, combined with overproduction. The accumulation of pharmaceutical waste imposes ecological, economic and social/ethical burdens. Managing this presumed “waste” has developed into a global challenge due to the absence of specific regulations, unreasonable behavior of the patients, and an improper understanding of the concept of “expired medications” in general. This paper summaries, first, the recent literature reporting practices related to the disposal of unused medications. In this context, 48 papers from 34 countries with a total of 33,832 participants point towards a significant lack of public awareness regarding the appropriate disposal of such biologically potent chemicals. These findings are corroborated by a local survey on the disposal practices of unused medicines among pharmacy students at Saarland University. The regulatory aspects surrounding this topic, often based on the official guidelines for the disposal of expired medications and local waste management strategies, are then discussed in light of these findings. Finally, a closer inspection of the epistemic values of expired medications and different strategies for managing expired medications have been reviewed.

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Attitudes towards the use and disposal of unused medications in two European Countries

Cited by 27 publications

References 2 publications

A cross-sectional survey of the Maltese general public on medication wastage

A cross-sectional survey of the Maltese general public on medication wastage

Attitudes and Practice Regarding Disposal for Unwanted Medications among Young Adults and Elderly People in China from an Ecopharmacovigilance Perspective

Expired Medication: Societal, Regulatory and Ethical Aspects of a Wasted Opportunity

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