Minimizing pharmaceutical waste: The role of the pharmacist

Abstract

Leftover and expired drugs, an indirect measure of wasted healthcare resources, reflect lost opportunities to achieve therapeutic outcomes (either due to incorrect choice or noncompliance) and a burden for the environment. In addition, medication waste is costly to national health systems because The questionnaire assessed disposal of leftover and expired drugs by pharmacists and their knowledge of drug disposal by the distributors. The awareness of the correct method of drug disposal, ways to minimize the pharmaceutical waste and extent of dissemination of information about drug disposal to patients was also evaluated. Results: The response rate was 56%. Although majority of the pharmacies have a system to dispose expired and leftover drugs, the knowledge about disposal was found to be incomplete. Most of the leftover drugs belonging to different dosage forms were returned to the distributor. One-third pharmacists did not know the correct method to dispose drugs. Majority of them did not advise patients about disposal of unused drugs. Only 58% believed that improper drug disposal is intimately connected to environmental pollution. Conclusion: Pharmacists have new roles and responsibilities to function as collaborative members of healthcare team by disseminating information about correct ways to dispose unused drugs.

Examining the Environmental Effects of Athletic Training: Perceptions of Waste and the Use of Green Techniques

“…Forty percent of those surveyed disposed of expired medications in an unsustainable way (ie, flush down toilet, place with biohazardous materials), and 21% surveyed did not know how expired medications were disposed of. This is similar to the findings of a 2014 study 25 in which 37% of pharmacists surveyed were unsure how pharmaceutical distributors disposed of medications. Returning expired medications to drug distributors was the most common route of disposal for pharmacists.…”

Examination of the Community Pharmacists’ Intention to Pharmacist Partnership Using the Theory of Planned Behavior: A Structural Equation Model

“…It is observed that pharmacy students' and pharmacists' attitudes are commonly used by researchers in several studies about pharmacy practice and education. [63][64][65][66][67] In addition, findings of this study are parallel to the literature about partnership and other types of business collaborations, too. 17,18,45,46 In this regard, both of H 1 and H 2 hypotheses are supported by the literature.…”

Pharmacists’ Knowledge Regarding Drug Disposal in Karbala

“…Therefore, a standardized, 20-items, self-administered questionnaire designed and developed to evaluate pharmacist knowledge when generating pharmaceutical waste in pharmacies. The questionnaire was developed depending on information drawn from the literature, and a number of questions were adapted and modified from other studies regarding pharmacist knowledge on drug disposal and its effect on health and environment [1,12,13,14,15,16,17,18]. Validation was performed to determine whether the study tool measured the intended goal of this study.…”