Public View towards Irrational Use of Medicine and its Relation to Social Pharmaceutical Marketing.

Aim: To study and evaluate Pubic institution Šilutė hospital‘s staff opinion about the use of medicines, its raciality and the influence of pharmaceutical marketing on their choice of medicines. The tasks: 1. To analyze the respondent‘s habits of choice and use of medicines. 2. To identify and evaluate the impact of medicine advertising on buying of medication. 3. To evaluate the connection between irrational drug use and social advertising. Participants: 30 Public institution Šilutė hospital staff (general practice nurses, nursing assistants), all of them volunteers (30 women, 0 men). The researcher introduced the respondents to the information about researth, also some information information was explained in the preamble of the questionnaire. Methods: An anonymous questionnaire was used to conduct the study. Respondents were introduced to the survey both orally and in the preamble of the questionnaire. The questionnaire was distributed to Public institution Šilutė hospital staff, and completed in the area of the hospital. The questionnaire asked respondents to: assess their health status, to evaluate their use of medications and treatment methods, and the impact of social advertising on their choices of treatment. The obtained research answers were analyzed, calculations were performed using IBM SPSS 23.0 program. Results: Age distribution of respondents: 20-40 years were 20%. (n = 6), 41-50m. 36.7% (n = 11), 51–60m. 30% (n = 9), over 60m. 13.3%. 60 percent of the participants in this research. (n = 18) were nurses and 40% (n = 12) nursing assistants. Their distribution by education: 16.7%. (n = 5) had high school education, 56.7%. (n = 17) collegiate and 26.6%. (n = 8) university education. 50 percent (n = 15) of the respondents rated their health as good, 37%. (n = 11) health status was satisfactory, 10 percent. (n = 3) felt very good and only 3%. (n = 1) bad. 56.7 percent. the most commonly used over-the-counter medications were for pain relief. Other drugs commonly used were to improve digestion 26.7%. Less popular over-the-counter medications were decongestants (6.7 percent) and antipyretics (10 percent). The most commonly used prescription drugs were blood pressure lowering drugs - 30%. and analgesics - 30%. 23% respondents responded to taking antibiotics, others said they were not taking prescription drugs. 87% of all respondents (n = 26) use over-the-counter medications at their discretion and only 13 percent. (n = 4) use them as recommended by doctors. 53% of all respondents. (n = 16) use prescription drugs at their own discretion, the remaining 47%. (n = 14) use them as recommended by doctors. More than half - 57 percent. respondents took their medications at the doses recommended by their doctor. 30% took lower doses than prescribed by the doctor, the remaining 13%. treated with higher doses. More than half (53.3%) of the survey respondents said they had seen pharmaceutical advertisements most often on television. Another area also popular for advertising is internet (23.4%). Also 60 percent. respondents advertising influences the medicines they buy. Conclusions: Irrational use of drugs is influenced by several factors: for example age, older participants, more frequent complaints about their health and use more medication. Another factor is education, lower education respondents tend to use self medication, their choice is also influenced by price. pharmaceutical marketing also has a major impact on the irrational use of medicines. Advertized medication are more popular and patients often tend to buy them