1) By cleaning out your medicine cabinet (or cupboard) and dropping off unused medication you can do your part to keep yourself, your family, and your community healthy.

2) By completing the MCCO survey you can provide valuable information to help us plan future programs and activities – plus, you will have a chance to win gift cards to Real Canadian Superstores and Zerhs Great Food Stores.

Although medicines are intended to help us get or stay healthy, unsafe practices like the ones reported in the 2008 MCCO survey responses, found on the background page, tell us that some individuals could be putting themselves or others at risk of:

• Taking the wrong medicine or dose, for the wrong reason, at the wrong time.
• Taking an expired medicine or unintentionally mixing medicines.
• Losing track of what type or how much medication is stored in the medicine cabinet.

 
Information provided in the survey can help health care professionals tailor their care (e.g., education, support, treatment, and referrals) to an individual’s personal needs. Also, health planners need this crucial information to develop future programming that can reduce unintentional poisonings in high-risk populations like younger children and older adults.

Backgrounder

Nearly three out of every four Canadians fill at least one prescription for medication each year (Morgan et al, 2008). The prescription drug business is a multi-billion dollar industry in Canada. In 2007, Canadians spent approximately $19 billion on prescription drugs (Lagden, 2009).

Although medicines are meant to keep or make us healthy, they have the potential to cause serious harm and even death. Medicines need to be taken by the right person, at the right time, in the right dose, for the right reason, and by the right route (by mouth, on skin, dropped into the ear canal, and so on.). If a mistake is made when taking medicine, or a child finds or swallows medicines, serious consequences can occur.

The Medicine Cabinet Clean Out Campaign is interested in understanding individual and household practices related to knowledge, consumption, storage, and disposal of medication. The Windsor-Essex County Health Unit has developed an online survey to help collect this information in Windsor and Essex County.

Medication safety in the home is everyone’s responsibility. To improve medication safety in the home, the MCCO campaign is trying to raise awareness on:

• Storing medicines.
• Disposing of leftover or expired medications.
• Following instructions.
• Knowing the reason for taking medications.
• Knowing the name and dose of medications.
• Keeping medication organized.

 
The 2009 Medicine Cabinet Clean Out Campaign survey asks residents of Windsor and Essex County about their usual medicine practices. The results of the survey can help health care workers improve medication safety for everyone.

We thank all residents of Windsor and Essex County region who completed the survey. The survey was  online for the month of November 30, 2009.