www.ijbcp.com International Journal of Basic & Clinical Pharmacology | April 2019 | Vol 8 | Issue 4 Page 746 IJBCP International Journal of Basic & Clinical Pharmacology Print ISSN: 2319-2003 | Online ISSN: 2279-0780 Original Research Article Knowledge, attitude and practice of in-home medication disposal in U.A.E. Manal Al Sha’rawy, Shifaa Abdin, Layal Kourbaj, Leena Kamal, Abdelmola R. Abdelkarem, Rana Ibrahim, Suleiman I. Sharif* INTRODUCTION Various presentations of medications are stored in almost every household unit. These include left over, unused and expired medications. The number of such stored medications is progressively increasing by the trend of patient’s self-medication practice. It has been suggested that indiscriminate purchase of medicines, inappropriate storage conditions, exchange of medicines with family members and friends and irrational use of medications without medical consultation may all result in serious health problems. 1 In addition, it has been stressed that storage of unused medications could be adopted as a measure of non-adherence among patient’s population. 2 In an earlier study of the 300 household units surveyed in United Arab Emirates (UAE), almost 85% of household chairs admitted throwing expired medications in general household waste, while only (3%) of household chairs dispose of unwanted medications by flushing in toilet, ABSTRACT Background: Medication disposal is one of the topics overlooked by the population in the United Arab Emirates. The present study aims at assessing the knowledge, attitude and practice of public to appropriate disposal of medications in Sharjah, UAE. Methods: A cross-sectional study on randomly selected subjects was conducted using a pre-piloted questionnaire written in Arabic and English and distributed to 250 subjects. The survey was designed with 22 questions to assess knowledge, attitude and practice on safe disposal of expired medication. Results: More than half (120, 54.8 %) of the participants were females of age 17- 25 (100, 45.7%) and with a university or a higher degree (124, 56.6%). A total of 131 (59.8%) of the participants reported that they do not take any precautions when disposing hazardous products and they just throw them in the general waste. Regardless of their educational level, 90 (41.1%) of the respondents believed that throwing medications in the general waste is the safest way of disposal. The majority of participants (202, 92.3%) reported that they never received counselling from pharmacists on safe disposal of expired and unused medications. Conclusions: International guidelines on safe medication disposal need to be adopted by health authorities. Providing secure collection boxes in various residential areas and increasing public awareness of medication’s safe disposal are important steps that could be implemented in the UAE. Pharmacists should also play a major role in guiding and instructing patients on this topic. Keywords: Disposal, Household chairs, Medications, United Arab Emirates DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.18203/2319-2003.ijbcp20191110 Department of Pharmacy Practice and Pharmacotherapeutic, College of Pharmacy, University of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates Received: 31 January 2019 Revised: 09 March 2019 Accepted: 14 March 2019 *Correspondence to: Dr. Suleiman El- Sharif, Email: sharifsi@sharjah.ac.ae Copyright: © the author(s), publisher and licensee Medip Academy. This is an open- access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non- Commercial License, which permits unrestricted non- commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.