INTRODUCTION Self-care oriented people are more likely to undertake self-care activities in order to treat lay self-diagnosed symptoms and restore their own health without professional assistance. One of these activities is self-medication, which refers to the use of medications without medical consultation. The absence of permanent doctors in rural Greece encourages self-medication practices. ...

BACKGROUND Free-text medication prescriptions contain detailed instruction information that is key when preparing drug data for analysis. The objective of this study was to develop a novel model and automated text-mining method to extract detailed structured medication information from free-text prescriptions and explore their variability (e.g. optional dosages) in primary care research databas...

BACKGROUND The aim of this study was to use a signal detection method to examine the prevalence of, and patient characteristics associated with, medication with potential to impair cognition and cholinesterase inhibitor use in patients with Alzheimer's disease. METHODS A cross-sectional study was conducted of 1,954 patients with a diagnosis of probable or possible Alzheimer's disease. Concurr...

BACKGROUND Access to medicines without prescription is a major contributing factor for self-medication practices. This study was designed to examine the ratio of non-prescribed medicines sales and self-medication practices in Punjab, Pakistan. This study also evaluates the reasons for self-medication within its communities. METHODS An observational study was conducted in 272 systemically sele...

OBJECTIVE The purpose of this study was to describe the patterns of prescription medication borrowing and sharing among adults, particularly women of reproductive age. METHODS Data were collected from the 2001-2006 HealthStyles surveys, an annual mail survey conducted in the United States concerning trends in health behavior. The total responses received were 26,566 of 36,420 surveys mailed (...

An immediate overt benefit of drug prescription by chiropractors would be access to those medication, currently only available on medical prescription, for controlling pain and inflammation. This would enable chiropractors to more completely manage some musculoskeletal conditions. Prescription rights, unless restricted to certain medications, would also give chiropractors access to antibiotics ...

BACKGROUND Prescription medication borrowing and sharing is a behaviour that has been identified in patients of all ages. This behaviour is recognised by medical researchers and government health authorities as a potential risk factor in adverse drug events across the community. OBJECTIVE This article discusses prescription medication borrowing and sharing and identifies populations more like...