Prescription medication sharing: A systematic review of the literature

K.A. Beyene, J. Sheridan and T. Aspden

American Journal of Public Health, 2014, vol. 104, issue 4, e15-e26

Abstract: We reviewed the literature on nonrecreational prescriptionmedication sharing.We searched PubMed, EMBASE, PsycINFO,andacustomized multidatabase for all relevant articles published through 2013; our final sample comprised 19 studies from 9 countries with 36 182 participants, ranging in age from children to older adults, and published between 1990 and 2011. The prevalence rate for borrowing someone's prescription medication was 5% to 51.9% and for lending prescription medication to someone else was 6% to 22.9%. Awide range ofmedicines were shared between family members, friends, and acquaintances. Sharingofmanyclassesof prescriptionmedicationwas common. Further research should explore why people share, how they decide to lend or borrow, whether they are aware of the risks, and how they assess the relevance of those risks.

Keywords: prescription drug, adult; drug misuse; human; review; statistics, Adult; Humans; Prescription Drug Misuse; Prescription Drugs (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:aph:ajpbhl:10.2105/ajph.2013.301823_6

DOI: 10.2105/AJPH.2013.301823

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