Older Adult Perceptions and Practices Regarding Medication Use and Storage

Approximately 35,000 young children are brought to US emergency departments annually due to unintentional medication exposures. A 2017 study examining the circumstances surrounding these exposures found that grandparents' medications were involved in 30.7% of prescription and 7.8% of over-the-counter exposures. Therefore, survey data were analyzed to better understand older adult perceptions and practices regarding medication use and storage to help inform interventions to promote safe medication storage behaviors.

Data were collected from February 22-27, 2024, through an online, "PN View Generation" survey of older adults aged 60-78 years.

Among 986 older adult respondents, 20.8% reported frequent interaction and 79.2% reported infrequent/no interaction with young children. Overall, most respondents (90.8%) reported taking at least one medication/supplement every day. Respondents most commonly reported keeping household medications in a cabinet (56.5%), on a table/desk (30.3%), and on a countertop (20.7%). Nearly half of all older adult respondents (48.5%) reported that they transfer medications from their original bottles to other containers like daily pill organizers/pill boxes. Among respondents who wanted to hear safe medication storage messages (N=769), the most frequently identified locations where they preferred to see/hear messages were at pharmacies (72.7%) and doctors' offices (66.5%).

Behaviors that could put young children at risk for unintentional medication exposures were commonly reported. Educational efforts to reach older adults, especially in healthcare settings, and packaging/storage innovations designed to increase the likelihood that adults keep medications/supplements within child-resistant containers may be necessary to promote safe storage behaviors when spending time with young children.