Survey on Locking up Medications at Home 2014-2019

LOCKMED MEDICAL PRODUCT COMPANY

APRIL 2019

Abstract

The United States of America is a very medicated nation that has enough prescription of painkillers according to Tricarico (2015) which is sufficient to treat each American. Medication is normally taken to prevent, treat, cure and prevent disease and also to relieve pain. Sometimes pharmaceutical drugs are taken to reduce stress and anxiety. LOCKMED’s survey on America’s prescription drug storing habits 2014-2019, the data collected shows that the population is comprised of people aged below eighteen years and sixty-five years old. Statistically from the survey, children below 18 years (45.36%) are more than those above 65 years old (21.65%) and elderly adults (14.43%). From the survey, about 17% of college students live at home.

In American household, there are fewer individuals who order prescription in large quantities in a time frame of three months than those do not. Survey data obtained shows that 83.51% of individuals have a designated place in the house to store their medications. The designated places for storing medicine includes kitchen, bathroom, bedroom, closet and some other places in the house. Although there are various methods of locking these areas, most prefer to leave it unlocked. Fewer attempts to unauthorized medication in the household might have been the reason why they are not locked.

There have been few incidences of medications missing at homes although it did have a lot of repercussions. 27.84% problems only associated with missing medications have was recorded. The survey report shows that 61.86% of Americans preferred to carry their medications with them when leaving their homes.

Introduction

Medication is described as a pharmaceutical drug that is used to detect, restore health and intercept a disease. Individuals use medicine for these reasons. From LOCKMED’s survey on America’s prescription drug storing habits of 2014-2019, it is safe to say that the vast majority of the population is between 18 years and 65 years old with a few elderly adults of approximately 14% and 45.36% children below 18 years.

Method

LOCKMED surveyed on the storing habits of prescription drugs on general America’s population. A closed-ended questionnaire was used to collect the data needed.

Results

The United States is a well-medicated state, from the estimation done by the Center for Disease Control, in the year of 2010 there were sufficient authorized painkillers allowed to treat each American adult for the whole month (Tricarico, 2015). Even though there is enough prescription for the nation, only 47.42% order prescriptions from their homes in large quantities and the rest 52.58% some use the drugs without a prescription, in other ways other than prescription or for other experiences or to obtain a certain feeling.

Majority of the individuals with authorized medication have a designated area in the house for storing their medicine. These ranges from the kitchen, bathroom, closet, bedroom and other places in the houses. Most people prefer storing their medicines in the kitchen followed closely by the bedroom; other unspecified locations in the house, bathroom, and closet follow simultaneously in that order.

Though there are various ways of keeping these designated medicine storage areas locked, most people prefer them unlocked. Majority of those who consider locking use other methods other than combination lock, key lock, dial combination, safe and fingerprint sensor. The safe and the fingerprint sensor are the least used for storage of pharmaceutical drugs.

From the survey, there is an indication that most individuals in the household use controlled substances to relieve themselves from pain and reduce anxiety. According to Vaglienti, Huber, Noel, and Johnstone (2003) patients with controlled substances need keen monitoring for any indicators of addiction that may result in misuse or drug abuse.

There are minimal incidences of unauthorized attempts to access of medicines stored at home in America as per the survey. From these attempts, 30.93% led to some pharmaceutical drugs missing at home. Few consequences as a result of missing medications have been witnessed with most of it not causing any problem.

Prescribed medications users prefer to take their drugs with them on a regular basis for easy access and also for the safety of the medicines. Having their medicine with them all the time prevent unauthorized access, medicine missing and also taking the medicine on time.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the American population who took this survey is made up of people between 18 years and 65 years old. 47.42% of this population uses prescribed medications and store these medications in unlocked designated areas in the house. The fact that most individuals leave these medicine storage areas unlocked, few attempts have been reported of unauthorized access with minimal consequences on those who managed to get hold of the medication.

References

Tricarico, R. P. (2015). A nation in the throes of addiction: Why a national prescription drug monitoring program is needed before it is too late. Whittier L. Rev., 37, 117.

Vaglienti, R. M., Huber, S. J., Noel, K. R., & Johnstone, R. E. (2003). Misuse of prescribed controlled substances defined by urinalysis. The West Virginia medical journal, 99(2), 67-70.