Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z3, Canada.
Department of Pharmacy, Lions Gate Hospital, North Vancouver, BC V7L 2L7, Canada.
Int J Pharm Pract. 2024 Jul 4;32(4):311-315. doi: 10.1093/ijpp/riae026.
Medication recycling within hospitals has proven financial and possible environmental benefits according to local evaluations done in British Columbia. Despite this, the extent of medication recycling in Canadian hospitals remains unclear in the literature.
OBJECTIVE(S): To determine if Canadian hospitals recycle medications, provide an estimate of how much medication is recycled by dosage form, and identify medication recycling barriers through the distribution of a cross-sectional survey.
A nine-question survey was distributed to 171 hospital pharmacy departments across Canada that consented to complete the survey. The survey identified whether sites recycled unused medications, an estimate of how much is recycled based on dosage form, and barriers to recycling.
Of 62 respondents, the majority indicated they do have medication recycling procedures; however, the frequency of recycling is suboptimal (30-50% of medications are not recycled), and not all medication types are always recycled. Individually packaged oral tablets were most often recycled, and oral liquid medications were least often recycled. Many multi-dose medications were not tamper-proofed. Most respondents selected "sanitization/infection control" and "resource constraint" as reasons for not recycling all medications.
Among respondents, the proportion and type of unused medicines that are recycled varied. For sites that did not respond, this might suggest that medication recycling is not a priority. This could represent a missed opportunity to standardize practices and increase medication recycling in hospitals, both of which could represent a meaningful step towards responsible use of medications and reduction of negative impacts on human health and the environment.
根据不列颠哥伦比亚省进行的当地评估，医院内的药物回收在财务上和可能的环境方面都有好处。尽管如此，加拿大医院的药物回收程度在文献中仍不清楚。
确定加拿大医院是否回收药物，提供按剂型回收的药物量的估计，并通过横断面调查来确定药物回收的障碍。
向加拿大 171 家医院药房部门分发了一份包含九个问题的调查问卷，这些部门同意完成调查。该调查确定了是否有站点回收未使用的药物，基于剂型的回收量估计，以及回收的障碍。
在 62 名受访者中，大多数表示他们确实有药物回收程序；然而，回收的频率不理想（30-50%的药物未被回收），并非所有药物类型都总是被回收。单独包装的口服片剂是最常被回收的，而口服液体药物是最不常被回收的。许多多剂量药物没有防篡改措施。大多数受访者选择“消毒/感染控制”和“资源限制”作为不回收所有药物的原因。
在受访者中，回收的未使用药物的比例和类型有所不同。对于未回复的站点，这可能表明药物回收不是优先事项。这可能代表着一个错失的机会，无法标准化实践并增加医院的药物回收，这两者都可能是朝着负责任地使用药物和减少对人类健康和环境的负面影响迈出的有意义的一步。
