| Study type/ Setting | Methods | Outcomes | Recommendations | Source |
| Cross-sectional survey
Setting: Multi-sector private Company
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The survey assessing participants’ drug handling and storage behaviors was answered by 1,121 employees from across eight provinces of Turkey in 2016. Participants were also significantly less likely to dispose of drugs inappropriately, practice self-medication, be unaware of expired drugs at home, or fail to store drugs according to the labelling | Main outcome measures were storage and disposal of unused/unwanted drugs at home in a rational way.
Results: The percentage of participants who declared that they keep unused/unwanted drugs at home was 28.0%. About one-third of participants disposed their unused/unwanted drugs via the ‘‘garbage, sink, toilet, etc.”. Participants 30 years old and living with <4 household members significantly tended to bring their unused/unwanted drugs to the company’s drug-box. Nearly half of all participants (46.5%) stated a recent change in their disposal behavior. The vast majority of participants (94.6%) who previously took drugs back to the company’s drug-box stated that they either had, or would, help their contacts adopt such behaviors. |
Findings showed that while a substantial number of participants still had unused drugs at home or disposed of them inappropriately, it is understood that they started to exhibit more favorable behaviors in recent years. Unused drugs at home might result in an inappropriate medication list during admission. | Akici A et al (2017) |
| Akici A, Aydin V, Kiroglu A. Assessment of the association between drug disposal practices and drug use and storage behaviors. Saudi Pharmaceutical Journal. 2018;26(1):7-13. doi:10.1016/j.jsps.2017.11.006 |
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