Purchasing Over The Counter (OTC) Medicinal Products Containing Codeine - Easy Access, Advertising, Misuse and Perceptions of Medicinal Risk
Bibliographic record
Abstract
PURPOSE: Codeine containing medicines can carry a number of health risks associated with the increase in reported misuse and dependence, however they are still readily available over the counter (OTC) in many countries. The aim of this novel study was to report on the results of a survey of customers purchasing OTC codeine containing medicinal products at pharmacies in Ireland, South Africa and England; exploring use, sources of knowledge and perception of risks. METHODS: The study design was an exploratory cross sectional survey. It involved a customer self-administered questionnaire at the point of purchase (n=1230). Relationships between categorical variables were analysed using Pearson chi-square for bivariate analysis. Continuous scale variables were analysed using one way analysis of variance. RESULTS: In Ireland 6% stated they purchased codeine containing products weekly, in South Africa 13% and in England 16%. In Ireland and England women are more likely to view codeine containing products as harmful. In England older adults are more likely to perceive codeine containing products as harmful. A higher proportion of customers in South Africa opposed restricting codeine containing products to prescription only when compared with people in Ireland and England. CONCLUSIONS: Codeine containing products are widely purchased and used in all three jurisdictions. Whilst the majority of customers appear to have some awareness and knowledge of risks, it does not materially impact on their purchasing behaviour with a substantial minority purchasing/using such products on a weekly basis. This regularity of purchase whilst indicative of the popularity of such products, may also be a potential indicator of misuse. Future research is needed in relation to cultural and gendered differences and targeted information giving and harm reduction initiatives for safe usage of these medicinal products.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".