Observational Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2023. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Clin Cases. May 6, 2023; 11(13): 2956-2965
Published online May 6, 2023. doi: 10.12998/wjcc.v11.i13.2956
Assessment of knowledge, cultural beliefs, and behavior regarding medication safety among residents in Harbin, China
Xuan-Tong Liu, Na Wang, Li-Qiu Zhu, Yu-Bo Wu
Xuan-Tong Liu, Yu-Bo Wu, Department of Pharmacy, The Fourth Hospital of Harbin Medical University, Harbin 150001, Heilongjiang Province, China
Na Wang, Department of Pharmacy, Heilongjiang Provincial Hospital, Harbin 150001, Heilongjiang Province, China
Li-Qiu Zhu, Ge Xin Community Health Service Center, Harbin 150001, Heilongjiang Province, China
Author contributions: Liu XT conceived and designed the experiments; Liu XT, Wang N, Zhu LQ, and Wu YB performed the experiments; Liu XT and Wang N analyzed the data and wrote the paper; Liu XT contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools; and all author shave read and approved the final version of this manuscript.
Supported by 2021 Science Popularization Research Project of National Medical Information Network, Chinese Pharmaceutical Association, No. CMEI2021KPYJ00101.
Institutional review board statement: This study was approved by the ethics committee of the Fourth Hospital of Harbin Medical University.
Informed consent statement: All patients who met the inclusion criteria were informed of the purpose of the study with the delivery of an information sheet and were invited to participate. All of them expressed their verbal consent and there was no refusal to participate.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Data sharing statement: The datasets generated and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement-checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement-checklist of items.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Xuan-Tong Liu, MD, Doctor, Department of Pharmacy, The Fourth Hospital of Harbin Medical University, No. 37 Yiyuan Street, Harbin 150001, Heilongjiang Province, China. liuxuantong1986@126.com
Received: August 1, 2022
Peer-review started: August 1, 2022
First decision: October 24, 2022
Revised: November 9, 2022
Accepted: April 4, 2023
Article in press: April 4, 2023
Published online: May 6, 2023
ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS
Research background

The Global Burden of Disease Study indicated that drug abuse was China’s 18th most common reason for disability-adjusted life years. Moreover, the incidence of drug-induced liver injury in China was 23.90 per 100000 people annually, as reported in 2019, which was higher than that in Western countries. The high incidence of medication errors and adverse events is significantly associated with an increased risk of morbidity, mortality, prolonged hospitalization, and increased economic burden.

Research motivation

The knowledge, cultural beliefs, and behavior around medication safety in the general population are important, and no study to date has focused on the general population in China.

Research objectives

The knowledge, cultural beliefs, and behavior regarding medication safety were described, and factors potentially impacting those aspects were explored.

Research methods

This cross-sectional survey recruited from 18 districts and counties in Harbin, China. The knowledge, cultural beliefs, and behavior for medication safety were obtained from a questionnaire. Both univariate and multivariate analyses were used to explore the factors that impacted medication safety.

Research results

The mean scores for knowledge, cultural beliefs, and behavior were 59.41, 40.66, and 60.97, respectively. The medication knowledge score was affected by age (P = 0.044), education (P < 0.001), and working status (P = 0.015); the cultural beliefs score was significantly affected by education (P < 0.001); working status (P = 0.011) and education (P = 0.003) were significantly associated with behavior score.

Research conclusions

Knowledge, cultural beliefs, and behavior about medication safety in the general population were moderate, and the main impact factors were age, education, and working status.

Research perspectives

The elderly, individuals with a low education level, and the unemployed should receive further health education to ensure the safe use of medications in Harbin, China.