December 17, 2008
A study by researchers at the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy found that 42 percent of Latinos in North Carolina who take prescription drugs have purchased medicines at grocery stores known as tiendas and 30 percent have bought medicines from outside the United States for their own use.
Researchers worry that some of those medicines are prescription drugs that are being bought without a prescription.
“In Mexico and in Central and South America, there are many drugs available over the counter that you can’t get without a prescription in the U.S.,” says Betsy Sleath, PhD, lead author of the study. “This fact causes some concerns. We hope we’ve highlighted some extra information that physicians and pharmacists need to consider to provide the best care possible for our Latino population.”
The main reasons patients had for buying medicines from a tienda or from outside the country were that they didn’t need a prescription, the prices were lower, the product was not available in the U.S., or they place greater trust in medicines from their home country. The most commonly purchased medications in tiendas and from other countries were pain medications, antibiotics, vitamins, and herbal supplements.
Improper use of prescription drugs can present problems for the patients, health-care providers, and the public, Sleath says.
“Taking prescription drugs without the guidance of a physician is asking for trouble. We’re talking about very powerful medications that can do more harm than good in the wrong hands,” she says.
“I also worry about indiscriminate use of antibiotics contributing to the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, which is a major problem already. This is especially frustrating if people are taking these medicines for the flu or a cold, which antibiotics won’t help at all.”
The purposes of the study were to discover how often Latinos purchased medicines from tiendas, to determine why they bought their medicines from these stores, and find out from whom Latinos typically receive medical information. The article, “Latinos’ Sources of Medication and Medication Information in the United States and Their Home Countries,” was published online November 28 by Patient Education and Counseling.
The authors found that
- 42 percent of participants reported buying medicines in tiendas, but only 5 percent reported that tiendas were their usual source of medicine.
- 91 percent of those in the survey used U.S. pharmacies as their primary source of medication.
- People with health insurance were significantly less likely to have purchase medicine in a tienda.
- 30 percent of Latinos reported buying antibiotics, vitamins, pain medicines, and herbal medicines in another country to bring back to the U.S. for their own use.
- 75 percent of participants preferred to receive verbal information about medications from a physician, and 16 percent preferred to receive it from a pharmacist.
“It is important for physicians and pharmacists to remember to ask their Latino patients—and all patients, for that matter—about all the medicines they are taking,” Sleath says.
The ninety-three Latinos (sixty-six women and twenty-seven men) in the study had medical conditions that included depression, allergies, hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol, asthma, and arthritis. Nearly three-quarters did not have health insurance.
The other authors of the study are associate professor Susan J. Blalock, PhD; Michael Murray, PhD, Mescal S. Ferguson Distinguished Professor and chair; and Ana Cerna, a doctor of pharmacy student; of the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, along with Deborah Bender, PhD, a research professor in the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health; and Mauricio G. Cohen, MD, an assistant professor in the UNC School of Medicine.
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