Evaluation of Drug use Pattern and Behavior in Rural and Urban Population
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- 1Department of Pharmacy Practice, PSG College of Pharmacy, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, INDIA.
CORRESPONDENCE
P Rama
Department of Pharmacy Practice, PSG College of Pharmacy, Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, INDIA.
Volume 13, Issue 1 · pp. 57-62 · 2020 · DOI: 10.5530/ijopp.13.1.9
ABSTRACT
Background: Irrational use of medicines leads to problems such as ineffective treatment, health risks non-adherence, medication wastages, needless expenditure, improper storage and disposal of medicine. Self-medication and health care seeking behaviour pattern varies among different populations.Aim: The study aimed to evaluate the drug use pattern and behaviour in urban and rural population on behalf of their medication usage.Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional study was conducted with a validated questionnaire among 300 participants excluding healthcare professionals, 150 each from urban and rural areas of Coimbatore district, Tamil Nadu.Results: From the study we observed that 61.3% in urban and 58% in rural population had the habit of checking expiry date before using their medication. 80% and 57% of the participants carried their previous prescriptions during doctor visit in rural and urban community respectively. 3.3% of participants had the habit of suggesting and lending their medicines. 27.3% of rural and 14.6% of urban participants repurchased medicines with their previous prescriptions. 40.3% of participants were consulting pharmacists for drug information. Majority of our participants from both communities had a habit of disposing their unused or expired medications in trash. The prevalence of self-medication was 86.6% and 67.2% in urban and rural populations respectively.Conclusion: From the study we conclude that both the communities have imperfections with drug use practice such as Adherence, self-medication, drug disposal and repurchase of medications. This suggests the strong need for implementation of population need-based awareness programs in both the communities.
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Rama, P., Jose, E., Paul, J. M., R, K., & V, G. R. (2020). Evaluation of Drug use Pattern and Behavior in Rural and Urban Population. Indian Journal of Pharmacy Practice, 13(1), 57-62. https://doi.org/10.5530/ijopp.13.1.9
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This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. CC BY 4.0