Assessing a Medication Safety and Disposal Educational Program using the Health Belief Model

Background: Self-medication practices continue to grow due to reclassification of prescription to OTC status and self-care information on the internet, however unintended injuries and inappropriate use of medications continue to challenge healthcare providers during the provision of patient care. Pharmacists have an integral role in pharmacovigilance and patient education activities to ensure safe medication use, storage, and disposal practices. Objectives: The objective of this medication safety and disposal educational program was to provide comprehensive informational support to the community coupled with an assessment using the Health Belief Model (HBM) to gauge participants' perceived behavior change. Methods: The HBM was selected to assess the understanding of the community members' benefits and barriers to safe medication practices. The HBM posits that health behaviors are influenced by perceptions of a diseases' severity, perceived susceptibility, perceived barriers to health practices, perceived benefits of health practices, self-efficacy, and cues to action. An 8 item pre/post survey following the HBM constructs was developed which used a 5 point Likert scale. Results: A total of 25 senior participants attended the educational program. Twenty-three pre/post surveys were completed (RR=92%). Five items revealed a statistically significant change from pre to post-educational content including understanding risk of herbal/OTC products (p=0.021), improved awareness of medication disposal methods (p=0.044), comprehension of OTC 'Drug Facts' information (p=0.004), understanding OTC label information to prevent medication interactions and side effects (p=0.008), and routinely reviewing expiration dates on medications and disposing of these properly (p=0.019). Conclusion: This study suggests a comprehensive approach which covers a wide range of medication safety topics and disposal practices can successfully improve the knowledge and skill of community participants and potentially improve medication harm reduction practices.