News
This study is the the first to examine how much prescription-sharing goes on among adults and the results were a surprise.
While it is common for both sexes, researchers noted that the highest rate of drug-sharing was among women of reproductive age at 36.5%.
Prescription-sharing is considered risky by safety experts. You may think you have the same prescription as someone else but you don’t. The dosage could be different. The generic could be different. If you became pregnant, the drug may be one you should not take.
Keep your own prescriptions filled.
Keep each person’s separate from the others.
Medication mistakes are so easy to make and can cause so much trouble.
You also don’t want to set a bad example for kids. Recently there have been stories about kids “borrowing” from their parents’ medicine cabinets so that they can get high at home.
Wonder where they learned that?
“According to a survey, 28.8% of women and 26.5% of men said they had shared or borrowed someone else’s prescription drug during their lifetime (rate ratio 1.08, 95% CI 1.04 to 1.13), Margaret Honein, Ph.D., of the CDC, and colleagues reported online in the Journal of Women’s Health. Women of reproductive age — 18 to 44 — had the highest rate at 36.5%, which the researchers found particularly troubling.
The most common medications borrowed or shared in this age group were for allergies (43.8%) or pain (42.6%), followed by antibiotics (32.3%).
The reasons most frequently cited were that they already had a prescription for the medication but ran out or didn’t have it (71.8%), they had the same problem (49%), or they got it from a family member (44.2%).
“Prescription medication borrowing and sharing are a concern for women’s healthcare providers and public health professionals because of the potential health effects for women and the possibility of teratogenic effects on the developing embryo or fetus,” the researchers said.
An estimated 11.7 million potentially teratogenic medications were prescribed from 1998 to 2001 to women of childbearing age, they said, “suggesting that potentially teratogenic medications are available for borrowing and sharing in this population.”
They concluded, “The risks of medication sharing should be discussed with patients when a healthcare provider is prescribing a medication that might be of teratogenic or other risk if the medication is used by persons other than those for whom it was prescribed.”
The sharing of prescription medications can have many unintended consequences in addition to possible teratogenic effects, the researchers said, including allergic reactions, unanticipated side effects, interactions between drugs, antibiotic resistance, a possible reduction in birth control efficacy, and addiction or abuse.
Source: Medpage Today, August 26, 2008
Citation: Journal of Women’s Health. 2008; DOI: 10.1089/jwh.2007.0769.