Romanian Society of Pharmaceutical Sciences
 

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ATTITUDE OF PATIENTS AND CUSTOMERS REGARDING PURCHASING DRUGS ONLINE

SZÉKELY PÁL1, KELEMEN LÁSZLÓ2, FITTLER ANDRÁS3, HANCU GABRIEL4, FINTA HAJNAL5, CIURBA ADRIANA6, SIPOS EMESE1*, BOTZ LAJOS3

1.University of Medicine and Pharmacy Târgu Mureș, Faculty of Pharmacy, Department of Pharmaceutical Industry and Pharmaceutical Management, Tîrgu Mureș, Romania
2.Gedeon Richter Romania, Tîrgu Mureș, Romania
3.University of Pécs, Pharmaceutical Institute, Pécs, Hungary
4.University of Medicine and Pharmacy Târgu Mureș, Faculty of Pharmacy, Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Tîrgu Mureș, Romania
5.University of Medicine and Pharmacy Târgu Mureș, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Hygiene, Tîrgu Mureș, Romania
6.University of Medicine and Pharmacy Târgu Mureș, Faculty of Pharmacy, Department of Pharmaceutical Technology, Tîrgu Mureș, Romania

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The expansion of Internet has made healthcare products, like drugs, which were previously available only with the physician recommendation, freely available to patients and customers through illegal practices or counterfeit medicine. The current paper aims to assess the situation of Internet related medicine acquisition and consumption, by surveying patients and customers of community pharmacies. The survey included 253 patients of 9 pharmacies from 5 different cities from Romania; data was collected using the questionnaire method. Based on the results of our survey, 8.3% of the respondents already ordered medicinal products via Internet and 7.1% were intending to do so in the near future. Those who ordered medicines from the Internet are typically between 18 and 34 years, have high school or university education and are usually men. Most of the respondents were unaware about the potential qualitative differences between medical products purchased on the Internet and those sold in conventional pharmacies. Such data represent a warning sign, as increasing attention should be sought towards the problem of online acquired medicines during routine patient care.