A Survey on the Use of External Medications and Injection Drugs Conducted by Persons Visiting in a Health Insurance Pharmacy / 社会薬学

ABSTRACT

Since attention is sometimes required with regard to the use and handling of external medications or injection drugs in drug therapy, patients may have a feeling of “inconvenience”. We, therefore, focused on a feeling of “inconvenience when using” external medications and injection drugs, and conducted a questionnaire survey to investigate the level of awareness and current status of using assist devices that can effectively reduce such inconvenience. The survey took place at a pharmacy, and involved interviews using a questionnaire. Of the 197 respondents, valid responses were obtained from 147 individuals (74.6%). As the results, 25.9% of individuals using external medications or injection drugs responded ‘yes’ concerning the feeling of “inconvenience when using” them. In addition, 39.4% of individuals using eye drops and 10.5% of those using insulin similarly responded. However, only 10.9% knew of the availability of assist devices that are expected to reduce the inconvenience. The results revealed that a certain number of people feel the “inconvenience” of external dosage forms investigated in this study, suggesting the need for pharmacists to consider that patients may have problems using their medications, and to recommend and support the use of assist devices that can be operated by patients.