300 households in Hue city underwent an inquiry using a questionary concerning the knowledge, the attitude of common civilian on the medicaments. Results showed a rate of 89% of population had used the physician prescription, 90% consumed antibiotics, 94% consumed antipyretics, anti-inflammation pain relief and pain relief agents, 89% vitamines, usually people took medicines to treat common diseases and conditions, such as fever (71%), cough (28%), asthenia (30%), diarrhoe (33%). In 6%, there is an abnormal complication in using medicine at home
Pharmaceutical Preparations ; Drugs, Non-Prescription ; drugs ; epidemiology

PURPOSE: This study was conducted to identify drug use by elders. METHOD: There were 304 participants age 65 or older included in this study. Data were collected using a questionnaire about drug use in the past 4 weeks. The questionnaire, a modification of Uhm's (2005), Lee's (2001), and Ellor and Kurz's (1982) tools, consisted of 17 questions on general and health characteristics, 17 on drug usage and 9 on behaviors related to drug misuse. RESULTS: 85.5% of participants reported taking at least one type of prescription or non-prescription drug. 26.0% of participants reported taking only prescription drugs, 3.9% reported taking only non-prescription drugs, and 55.6% reported taking both prescription and non-prescription drugs. 17.1% of participants reported side effects from the drugs. The mean score for behaviors related to drug misuse was 7.53. Elders taking only non-prescription drugs showed more drug misuse than elders taking only prescription drugs or both. Women used more prescription, non-prescription drugs or both than man. Elders in rural areas used more non-prescription drugs than those in urban areas. CONCLUSION: Even though pharmacies were separated from medical practices in 2000, most older adults continue to use and misuse prescription and non-prescription drugs.
Adult ; Aged ; Female ; Humans ; Nonprescription Drugs ; Pharmacies ; Prescription Drugs ; Prescriptions ; Surveys and Questionnaires

OBJECTIVE: To compare adverse event reporting patterns between ethical-the-counter and over-the-counter drugs from community pharmacies and outpatient settings. METHODS: We conducted a descriptive study using the adverse event reporting database, wherein data were collected from the regional pharmacovigilance centers of the Korean Pharmaceutical Association between January 1, 2016 and December 31, 2016. The reported drugs were classified into either ethical-the-counter or over-thecounter drugs, and we compared the distribution of patient age and gender, frequent adverse events and medications, serious adverse events, and causality assessment results, where causality assessments were performed according to the World Health Organization-The Uppsala Monitoring Centre's system. RESULTS: We included 17,570 reports (75,451 drug-adverse event pairs). Ethical-the-counter and over-the-counter drugs accounted for 81.4% and 18.6% of the total adverse event reports, respectively. The use of over-the-counter drugs was higher in females and patients aged <18 years, whereas the use of ethical-the-counter drugs was higher in those aged >65 years. Alimentary tract and metabolism drugs, and respiratory system drugs were the most frequent ethical-the-counter and over-the-counter drugs, respectively. From causality assessment results, “possible” (75.4%) was the most commonly assigned category for ethical-the-counter drugs, while “possible” (44.0%) and “unlikely” (47.7%) were the most common categories for over-the-counter drugs. The distribution of serious adverse events were similar for both ethical-thecounter and over-the-counter drugs. CONCLUSION: Differences were observed in age, gender, reported medications, and symptoms for both ethical-the-counter and over-the-counter drugs. Further pharmacovigilance activities considering the adverse event characteristics of over-the-counter drugs, which are comparable to ethical-the-counter drugs, should be performed.
Female ; Global Health ; Humans ; Metabolism ; Nonprescription Drugs* ; Outpatients ; Pharmacies* ; Pharmacovigilance ; Prescription Drugs ; Respiratory System

PURPOSE: The Tox-Info system is a poisonous substance information database developed by the Korean National Institute of Food and Drug Safety Evaluation. The aim of this study was to estimate the coverage effectiveness of the Tox-Info system by comparing the toxic substances included in the database with the distribution of the toxic substances implicated in the cases of intoxicated patients presenting to emergency departments. The secondary aim of the study was to propose any additional substances that should be added to the database. METHODS: We retrospectively reviewed the medical records of patients suffering with toxic exposure who had visited any of 12 selected emergency departments in Korea from January 2010 to December 2011. The identified toxic substances were classified into groups including prescription drugs, agricultural chemicals, household products, animals or plants, herbal drugs, and others. We calculated the coverage rate of the Tox-Info database relative to the number of intoxication cases and the type of toxic substances involved. RESULTS: A total of 5,840 intoxicated patient records were collected. Their mean age was 46.6+/-20.5 years and 56.2% were female. Of the total intoxication cases, 87.8% of the identified toxic substances were included in the Tox-Info database, while only 41.6% of all of the types of identified toxic substances were included. Broken down by category, 122 prescription drugs, 15 agricultural chemicals, 12 household products, 14 animals or plants and 2 herbal drugs involved in poisoning cases were not included in the Tox-info database. CONCLUSION: This study demonstrated the clinical usefulness of the Tox-Info system. While 87.8% of the substances involved in the cases were included in the Tox-Info database, the database should be continuously updated in order to include even the most uncommon toxic substances.
Agrochemicals ; Animals ; Emergencies ; Female ; Household Products ; Humans ; Korea ; Medical Records ; Prescription Drugs ; Retrospective Studies ; Stress, Psychological

OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study was to investigate the difference of perception on direct-to-consumer advertisement (DTCA) of prescription drugs between healthcare providers and consumers. METHODS: The online and offline survey was conducted from May 26th to June 5th, 2013. The questionnaire was composed of 15 items about perception on DTCA of prescription drugs. RESULTS: A total of 215 healthcare providers and 202 consumers responded to the questionnaire. Consumers had an overall positive attitude on permitting DTCA of prescription drugs and carried favorable views about the influence of the DTCA of prescription drugs on providing drug information, promoting communications between healthcare providers and consumers, and improving images of healthcare providers. Healthcare providers displayed negative perception for the needs of permitting the DTCA of prescription drugs compared to consumers. They showed somewhat skeptical perception about the influence of the DTCA of prescription drugs on necessities and efficiencies of delivering drug information, promoting communications between healthcare providers and consumers, and improving images of healthcare providers. Both healthcare providers and consumers were concerned about the increase of drug prices following the increase in advertisement expenses of pharmaceutical products. CONCLUSION: This study identified the perception differences on direct-to-consumer advertisements of prescription drugs between healthcare providers and consumers. This study could be of much help in the process of review on permitting DTCA of prescription drugs in Korea.
Delivery of Health Care* ; Health Personnel* ; Humans ; Korea ; Pharmaceutical Preparations ; Prescription Drugs* ; Prescriptions*

OBJECTIVETo understand the status of knowledge and behavior of drug use among urban and rural residents in 5 provinces in China to suggest priority intervention strategies and measures for drug use health education.

METHODSFrom March to May of 2011, 6159 urban and rural residents were selected from Beijing, Liaoning, Zhejiang, Yunnan, Shaanxi provinces by the multistage stratified sampling method and were investigated by the questionnaires on drug use knowledge and behavior.

RESULTSThe residents' average awareness rate for 11 pieces of basic drug use information was 48.3% (32,750/67,749). The residents' average awareness rate in the rural (40.3%, 9189/22 792) was lower than that in metropolitan (51.9%, 11 483/22 110) and small and middle-sized cities (52.9%, 12,078/22,847) and the differences had statistical significance (χ2=889.30, P<0.01). Overall, 77.0% (4742/6159) of residents purchased drug according to the doctors' prescription; 36.9% (2271/6159) of residents bought by their experiences; 33.3% (2049/6159) of residents did not know whether they had bought faked drugs; 32.7% (2016/6159) of residents did not read instructions carefully before using drug; 83.4% (5134/6159) of residents stored drugs in their house and only 29.2% (1798/6159) of residents would check up expired drugs regularly; 59.6% (3673/6159) of residents changed drug by themselves after suspected adverse reaction of drugs.

CONCLUSIONChinese urban and rural residents' knowledge level of drug use is inadequate and drug use behaviors are not optimistic. Drug use health education should be enhanced among urban and rural residents.

The Korean Government has launched a pilot program of the Drug Utilization Review (DUR) system in an effort to facilitate safe and adequate use of pharmaceuticals by providing reference to physicians and pharmacists at the prescription or dispense stage, with regards to the drugs that should not be combined or should not be given to certain age groups. Implementation of the DUR system is absolutely necessary in Korea, as the number of drug taken per patient is on a continuous rise with increase of senior population and development of new pharmaceuticals. The DUR system is expected to contribute to promotion of people's health and reduction of pharmaceutical expense. However, for a successful establishment of the DUR system, the following conditions should be considered: First, inclusion of non-prescription drugs in the system, Second, review on the current classification of non-prescription and prescription drugs, Third, review on therapeutic duplication contraindication, age contraindication, and gravida contraindication by physicians as clinical experts. Moreover, reimbursement within the framework on medical fee schedule for the DUR system should be followed as well as the efforts to adjust problems through open discussion between insurers and providers.
Appointments and Schedules ; Drug Utilization ; Drug Utilization Review ; Fees, Medical ; Humans ; Insurance Carriers ; Korea ; Nonprescription Drugs ; Pharmacists ; Prescription Drugs ; Prescriptions

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a chronic infectious disease, which the patients are infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). HIV damages the human's immune function and causes CD4 cell decline in the number and function. Immune reconstitution is an important treatment to AIDS. Bone marrow transplantation, adoptive immune cell therapy and cytokines infusion can all assist the immune reconstitution; highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) can effectively control the virus replication and benefit the immune reconstitution. HAART combined with immunotherapy is an important method of immune reconstitution in AIDS patients. Chinese medicine is playing a more and more important role in immune reconstitution. Immune reconstitution has always been effective in the whole treatment of AIDS.
Acquired Immunodeficiency Syndrome ; drug therapy ; etiology ; immunology ; Drugs, Chinese Herbal ; therapeutic use ; Humans ; Immunotherapy ; Prescription Drugs ; therapeutic use

PURPOSE: Rapid growth of prescription drug expenditures is a problem in South Korea. The objective of this study was to assess the contributions of four variables (therapeutic choice, drug-mix, original use, and price changes) to increases in drug expenditures paid by the National Health Insurance (NHI) in Korea. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A retrospective cohort study was conducted between January 1, 2008 and June 30, 2012 utilizing data from the NHI Claims Database of the Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service. The number of target drug types for final analysis was 13959. To analyze the growth rates of drug expenditures, this study used Fisher ideal index and the Laspeyres and Paasche indexes. RESULTS: With the exception of 2012, therapeutic choice contributed to about 40-60% of the increase in drug expenditures every year, while drug-mix contributed to another 30-40%. CONCLUSION: The rapid growth in prescription drug expenditure was found to be largely due to drug-mix and therapeutic choice over time. Original use had little impact on drug spending.
Cohort Studies ; Health Expenditures/*statistics & numerical data ; Humans ; National Health Programs/*economics ; Prescription Drugs/*economics ; Republic of Korea ; Retrospective Studies

After the 19th South Korean presidential election was scheduled to be held on May 9, 2017, a number of presidential candidates have rushed to announce their health policies. Regardless of the presidential candidate, almost all health policies have tended to focus on fragmentary pledges. Thus, the Research Institute for Healthcare Policy (RIHP), which is part of the Korean Medical Association (KMA), has selected 5 key policy issues among the 25 health policies that were developed through the planning group for health policy development: the development and passage of the Special Act on Supporting Primary Care, the establishment of a health care delivery system, the independence of the Ministry of Healthcare from the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the implementation of the right to choose prescription drugs, and progress toward addressing the problems faced by the National Health Insurance program. In addition, the KMA has launched a presidential engagement campaign in order to reinforce its political status, as well as to encourage KMA members to participate in politics. I hope that this paper provides guidance in making correct decisions from a public health perspective, and am confident that this election will help medicine to develop in the right direction.
Academies and Institutes ; Delivery of Health Care ; Health Policy* ; Hope ; National Health Programs ; Politics ; Prescription Drugs ; Primary Health Care ; Public Health