Examination of parents' attitudes towards rational drug use and domestic drug waste awareness levels

Objective: This descriptive study aims to examine parents' attitudes towards rational drug use and their awareness levels regarding household pharmaceutical waste. Materials and Methods: The research was conducted between April and October 2024 with 400 parents who applied to the Ağrı Central Family Health Center No. 3 and had children aged 0-12 years. Data were collected using the "Parent and Child Demographic Information Form," "Parental Attitude Scale Towards Rational Drug Use," and "Household Pharmaceutical Waste Management Awareness Form." For data analysis, arithmetic mean, standard deviation, skewness and kurtosis coefficients, independent samples t-test for normally distributed groups, one-way ANOVA, Welch's test for groups with non-homogeneous variances, and Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney U tests for non-normally distributed groups were used. Bonferroni tests were used for Post Hoc analyses. Findings: It was determined that 60.75% of the parents were mothers, the mean age was 36.30±7.27, 49.25% of their children were in the 0-6 age group, and 57.5% did not use over-the-counter (OTC) medication for their 0-12 year old children. It was found that 55% of parents stated that they dispose of improperly stored, expired, or unused medication waste in the trash or pour it down the sink. 96% checked the expiration dates of medicines at home, 90.5% checked the storage conditions of medicines at home, 33.6% reported painkillers as the most common continuously unused medicine group at home, and 83.5% used their prescribed medications according to instructions until finished. In the study, parents scored 125.81±17.11 on the "Correct and Conscious Use" sub-dimension, 39.53±9.21 on the "Effective and Safe Use" sub-dimension, and a total of 165.29±21.36 on the Parental Attitude Scale Towards Rational Drug Use. A statistically significant relationship was found between parents' practices regarding household pharmaceutical waste and their sociodemographic characteristics, and their mean scores on the Parental Attitude Scale Towards Rational Drug Use (p<0.05). Conclusion: The study concluded that parents' attitudes towards rational drug use were positive, and their awareness of household pharmaceutical waste was at a moderate level. Furthermore, it was determined that family type, place of residence, marital status, educational status, occupation, and over-the-counter drug use status had an effect on the Parental Attitude Scale Towards Rational Drug Use scores. It is recommended that pediatric nurses conduct studies to determine community awareness of Rational Drug Use and household pharmaceutical waste, and to give more emphasis to such research in areas where awareness is low.