Saturday, July 02, 2005

What Does OTC Mean?

This is quite discouraging:

In October 2003, all registered pharmacists living and working in South Dakota were mailed a survey to assess their dispensing practices for, knowledge about, and attitudes toward emergency contraceptive pills.

...

Multivariate analysis showed that knowledge of emergency contraception and support for over-the-counter status were relatively low among pharmacists working in small communities.


Of the respondents:

  • 54% worked in pharmacies that carried emergency contraceptive pills. Of these, 67% had dispensed the medication in 2003, and 24% were not comfortable providing customer counseling about the method.

  • 37% of all pharmacists did not understand its mechanism of action; 43% and 21%, respectively, incorrectly answered questions about the medication's link to birth defects and health risks. Only 5% correctly answered all three questions.

  • 84% of surveyed pharmacists believed that the medication should not be made available over the counter.

  • 2 Comments:

    At 7:29 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

    Who exactly did this study?

     
    At 12:09 PM, Blogger ema said...

    Hellerstedt WL and Van Riper KK, from the School of Public Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA. Here's one of the author's email: hellerstedt@epi.umn.edu.

     

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