Editorials

Over the counter drugs

People are buying more medications for themselves,¹ and increasingly powerful drugs are obtainable without prescription.² In view of these trends, it is timely to examine their implications for patients and health care professionals. A series of articles starting in this issue of the BMJ (p 629) examines the move towards greater over the counter access to drugs and its relation to increasing public awareness of health and medicines, the changing roles of doctors and pharmacists, pharmaceutical industry strategies, and the question of safety and abuse of drugs.²

Over the counter (OTC) drugs are available to the public without prescription. They include traditional pharmacy preparations and drugs that have more recently been deregulated from their previous status as "prescription only medicines." Policies on over the counter drugs vary around the world. In many European countries, over the counter drugs are available only through pharmacies,³ . . . [Full text of this article]

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Relevant Article

GPs lack awareness of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs available over the counter

B Pal
BMJ 1996 313: 116. [Extract] [Full Text]

This article has been cited by other articles:

• Rutter, P. M, Horsley, E., Brown, D. T (2004). Evaluation of Community Pharmacists' Recommendations to Standardized Patient Scenarios. The Annals of Pharmacotherapy 38: 1080-1085 [Abstract] [Full text]  
• MacFadyen, L., Eadie, D., McGowan, T. (2001). Community pharmacists' experience of over-the-counter medicine misuse in Scotland. The Journal of the Royal Society for the Promotion of Health 121: 185-192 [Abstract]  
• Marks, R. (2000). Who Will Advise Patients About Matters Dermatological in the New Millennium?. Arch Dermatol 136: 79-80 [Full text]  
• Reeves, D. S., Finch, R. G., Bax, R. P., Davey, P. G., Po, A. L. W., Lingam, G., Mann, S. G., Pringle, M. A. L. (1999). Self-medication of antibacterials without prescription (also called `over-the-counter' use): A report of a Working Party of the British Society for Antimicrobial Chemotherapy. J Antimicrob Chemother 44: 163-177 [Abstract] [Full text]  
• Pal, B (1996). GPs lack awareness of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs available over the counter. BMJ 313: 116a-116 [Full text]