Unused Medicines in Households

Unused medicines in households are among the problems in many modern societies and developing nations. This issue leads to social and economical problems, and it is associated with other complications such as self-medication, poisoning, incomplete recovery, and suicide. The present study was carried out in Mashhad and aimed at determining the amount of unused medicines in Mashhadi households in 2013. In a cross-sectional study in 2013, three hundred households were selected through a cluster random sampling with the help of 12 healthcare centers in Mashhad. Data were collected by applying a checklist and analyzed by SPSS 11.5. Descriptive indices, including central tendency and dispersion, and frequency distribution were applied to describe qualitative variables; and chi-2, Man-Whitney, and Kruskall-Wallis to compare quantitative variables. Level of significance was set to P < 0.05. This study showed that the existence of unused drugs and the number of unused drugs in household have significant difference in four zones (P = 0.01, P < 0.001). Also, health insurance coverage was statistically different in various health centers (P = 0.002). Also, there is a significant association between unused medication in the household and family size, father’s occupation, and a family member being a health professional, respectively (P value 0.02, 0.002, 0.04) The findings of this study and similar ones support that the amount of unused medicines inside houses has to be lowered by physicians prescribing a more reasonable number of drugs, giving consultation to patients, and raising public awareness. On the other hand, a mechanism needs to be applied in order to make use of the drugs kept inside houses and reduce drug wastage.