Consumer Perceptions of the Effectiveness and Safety of Over-the-Counter Medications

Laurel Stephen^*
*Correspondence: Laurel Stephen, Department of Surgery, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, Email:

Introduction

Most people believe that over-the-counter medications are useful for treating minor ailments. From a survey perspective, this position frequently stems from feedback when these medicines are grouped together as a single broad category. The study's goal was to look at 15 different kinds of agents in terms of their effectiveness, safety and familiarity. In one Canadian province, residents were asked to consider 15 OTC medicine categories in terms of those dimensions in an online non-random survey. Out of the 3,000 surveys that were sent, 155 were completed. The athlete's foot cream scored 5.1 on the 10-point effectiveness scale, while the headache medicine scored 7.3. The medications were grouped closely (6.0 to 7.4) for safety reasons. Children's cough syrups were thought to be less safe than adult cough syrups.

Description

The perceptions of the product's safety and efficacy tended to rise in tandem with product familiarity. Even though safety ratings for over-the-counter medications were not particularly high, the findings corroborate other reports describing them as safe and effective. The majority of respondents thought that the effectiveness of these drugs was more important than their safety. People's propensity to take over-the-counter (OTC) medications for minor ailments is influenced by a variety of factors, including what is relevant to their situation from advertisements, friends and family, or by asking a pharmacist. After that, if you use well, you'll probably use more and if you use poorly (with no benefits or side effects), you'll find other options [1].

For the most part, people believe that over-the-counter medications are safe and effective for treating minor ailments. According to a report from Australia, consumers most important considerations when purchasing overthe- counter (OTC) medications were their personal experiences with their effectiveness and safety. The risk of using them has been described as low. In fact, data from the United Kingdom suggest that consumers tend to focus on the benefits rather than the risks when using over-the-counter medications. Instead of putting effort into evaluating various medications, the focus was primarily on getting better. Even use has been described as a rather routine activity and Canadians held the belief that regulatory authorities have the necessary safeguards in place.

When 1,000 adults in Canada were asked to rate the safety of over-thecounter medications, there was a lot of support for them, but no one said that they were always safe. Seven percent said they were rarely or never effective, while approximately half said they were also effective frequently or always.

OTC medicines have been the focus of a lot of research in this area. However, the analysis was expanded upon in the recently cited report, which examined agent safety and effectiveness in relation to specific categories. The following agents were found to be frequently or always safe, on a scale of never, rarely, sometimes, frequently and always: Vitamins/minerals (64%), cough/ cold (60%), painkillers (56%), herbals (52%), upset stomach/nausea (50%), allergies (44%) and laxatives (40%) are the most common ailments. In the case of laxatives, one in five respondents thought they were rarely or never safe to use. However, the majority of respondents thought they were safe to use at least occasionally [2].

The following agents were considered to be always or frequently effective for the second parameter: vitamins/minerals (50%), laxatives (40%), allergy (37%), cough/cold (42%), painkillers (58%) and herbals (33%). Similar to this, 94% of Americans said they were either very satisfied or somewhat satisfied with over-the-counter medications. This suggests that there are few drawbacks and a reasonable level of efficacy. The current research expands on the evaluation of particular agent categories in terms of perceived efficacy and safety. This was one part of a larger study that looked at a wide range of OTC medicine-related problems. It goes without saying that a medicine needs to be effective and safe to use. The way these 15 OTC medicine categories are perceived suggests that their use is supported in some way.

All scored above the scale's midpoints, at the very least. However, comparatively speaking, respondents did consider them to be more safe than effective. While important to see where the specialists arrived on the adequacy scale, it is unimaginable to expect to decide so, all in all on that scale that a specialist accomplishes viability. Cough syrups for children, for instance, were ranked 0.3 points lower than syrups for adults. The 5.3 value for paediatric syrups may still be a respectable result despite the fact that an inter-product comparison is now possible. Similarly, despite being a full 2.0 points lower than headache medication, it cannot be assumed that cough syrup is ineffective. It is common knowledge that cold sore ointments and cough syrups are ineffective, but azoles for athlete's foot are thought to be effective. Pediatrics cough syrups received ratings ranging from 6.0 to 7.4 for their safety. Since a multivitamin would unquestionably be the safest of the 15 categories, the latter value lends some support to the validity of the scale [3].

A step further, however, is the fact that a straightforward multivitamin would not have received a score much closer to 10 at the pole, even if the 7.4 value is the highest possible for this measure. Concerning safety, five entities received scores of 7.0 or higher. Given that the construct will be a gradient, it would only be conjecture as to what minimum score would be required for any agent to be deemed safe by the public, as seen with effectiveness. In any case, the public seems to think that all of the scores on this property are pretty similar because of the clustering that was observed. The current review is imaginative in that it is one of a handful of to think about the general class of OTC drugs as more modest gatherings. It goes above and beyond than those reports in a couple of regions. For instance, other reports divided "cough/cold medicines" into "head cold" and "cough syrups" (both for adults and children). Specific skin conditions like athlete's foot and diaper rash were added. In the American report, clogging and looseness of the bowels were viewed as together, while they were isolated in the ongoing report. However, neither "laxatives" nor "headache medicines" were separated into acetaminophen and ibuprofen categories; to avoid overburdening responders, a balance was required. There were fifteen categories used, while other reports used seven or eight [4,5].

Conclusion

The momentum research will in general help different reports where OTC meds have been portrayed as compelling and safe. However, it is important to note that safety was not given a particularly high rating. This maybe reflects what was seen a long time back (around 1990) in a public overview, where OTC meds were viewed as protected, yet not absolutely so. This could indicate that respondents have a positive attitude. In a similar vein, other research has shown that consumers are aware of the potential dangers posed by these agents and they use them with caution. Canadians also think that over-thecounter (OTC) products aren't very effective, which is worrying (though they do have brand loyalty for those that do help). Although generally safe, these agents have been regarded as less potent and more watered-down versions of prescription medications. Even more concerning is the fact that 75 of 553 Americans polled on the acceptability of risk believed that the majority of overthe- counter medications did not cause any adverse effects. On a five-point scale from very risky to not at all risky, reisenwitz rated the perceived risk of over-the-counter purchases, with a mean of 3.7 and 35.8% saying there was no risk to them. This does not look good for taking medicines correctly.

Acknowledgement

None

Conflict of Interest

None

References

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