Beyond abuse and exposure: framing the impact of prescription-medication sharing

We sought to document the frequency, circumstances, and consequences of prescription medication-sharing behaviors and to use a medication-sharing impact framework to organize the resulting data regarding medication-loaning and -borrowing practices.

One-on-one interviews were conducted in 2006, and participants indicated (1) prescription medicine taken in the past year, (2) whether they had previously loaned or borrowed prescription medicine, (3) scenarios in which they would consider loaning or borrowing prescription medicine, and (4) the types of prescription medicines they had loaned or borrowed.

Of the 700 participants, 22.9% reported having loaned their medications to someone else and 26.9% reported having borrowed someone else's prescription. An even greater proportion of participants reported situations in which medication sharing was acceptable to them.

Sharing prescription medication places individuals at risk for diverse consequences, and further research regarding medication loaning and borrowing behaviors and their associated consequences is merited.