Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2021 Jun 29;9(7):823.
doi: 10.3390/healthcare9070823.

Community Pharmacists' Practice, Awareness, and Beliefs about Drug Disposal in Saudi Arabia

Sultan Alghadeer  1   2 , Mohammed N Al-Arifi  1
Affiliations

Community Pharmacists' Practice, Awareness, and Beliefs about Drug Disposal in Saudi Arabia

Sultan Alghadeer et al. Healthcare (Basel). .

Abstract

The awareness among Saudi people regarding the good and safe practice of drug disposal is fairly low. Community pharmacists' potential toward drugs disposal directions and practice are not emphasized enough. Therefore, a cross sectional study was conducted in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to evaluate the practice, awareness and beliefs of community pharmacists about disposal of unused drugs. Out of 360 subjects who participated in the study, more than 70% returned the unused drugs to the pharmaceutical distributors. Around 80% of the participants confirmed the risk of environmental damage due to the inappropriate disposal of drugs, and 87.5% of them held themselves responsible for preventing such risk. Approximately 85% of surveyed pharmacists believed community pharmacies to be an appropriate location for the collection of unused drugs. There was no significant association between the community pharmacists' age group and years of practice as community pharmacists with either the awareness of unused medication disposal on environmental hazards, or the beliefs about the appropriate location for collecting unused drugs (p > 0.05). The awareness and proactive accountable responsibility, along with community pharmacists' belief of appointing pharmacies to collect unused drugs, strongly support the institution of drug take-back programs.

Keywords: awareness; community pharmacy; drug disposal; environment; practice; unused medication.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

References

    1. AlKhamees O.A., AlNemer K.A., Maneea M.W.B., AlSugair F.A., AlEnizi B.H., Alharf A.A. Top 10 most used drugs in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia 2010–2015. Saudi Pharm. J. 2018;26:211–216. doi: 10.1016/j.jsps.2017.12.009. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Glassmeyer S.T., Hinchey E.K., Boehme S.E., Daughton C.G., Ruhoy I.S., Conerly O., Daniels R.L., Lauer L., McCarthy M., Nettesheim T.G., et al. Disposal practices for unwanted residential medications in the United States. Environ. Int. 2009;35:566–572. doi: 10.1016/j.envint.2008.10.007. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Abou-Auda H.S. An economic assessment of the extent of medication use and wastage among families in Saudi Arabia and Arabian Gulf countries. Clin. Ther. 2003;25:1276–1292. doi: 10.1016/S0149-2918(03)80083-8. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Kar S., Roy K., Leszczynski J. Impact of Pharmaceuticals on the Environment: Risk Assessment Using QSAR Modeling Approach. Methods Mol. Biol. 2018;1800:395–443. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Scott S., Branley A. Drugs Including Painkillers, Anti-Depressants Found in Tests on Sydney Harbour Water. ABC News. [(accessed on 10 June 2021)];2015 Jul 6; Available online: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-07/common-drugs-found-lurking-in-sydn....

LinkOut - more resources