The Impact of Consequences Awareness of Public Environment on Medicine Return Behavior: A Moderated Chain Mediation Model

Jun Lv,Sivhuang Lay,Xuan Liu

doi:10.3390/ijerph18189756

Jun Lv, Sivhuang Lay + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18189756

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Abstract

With global aging trends and prosperity in the medicine market, the number of unused or expired household unused or expired medicines is increasing. Medicines which are discarded improperly result in serious pollution. From the perspective of behavioral science, the main contribution of this paper is the construction of a chain mediation model to analyze the influence mechanism between consequences awareness of the public environment and proper return behavior of unused or expired medicines. The model explores the moderating effect of personal health awareness with through observation of to the mediating effect of personal norms and return intention. Using a sample size of 366 residents from China, the proposed hypotheses are empirically tested. The results show: firstly, the direct effect of residents’ consequences awareness of public environmental awareness on the proper medicine return behavior is not significant; secondly, return intention plays a mediating role in the positive effect of consequences awareness of the public environment on proper return behavior; thirdly, personal norms and return intention play a chain mediating role in the positive impact of consequences awareness of the public environment on proper return behavior; and lastly, personal health awareness moderates the chain mediation path by strengthening the positive effect of return intention on proper return behavior.

Highlights

Accepted: 14 September 2021With increasingly aging populations and the prevalence of chronic diseases, social medicine reserves and the number of unused or expired medicines are rapidly increasing.Unused medicine is a medicine that is still before its expiration date, but is no longer taken before its expiration date, has been forgotten in the corner of the family medicine box, and is likely to become an expired medicine; expired medicine is a medicine that exceeds its shelf life and can no longer be taken
The results showed that when the level of personal health awareness was low, the effect of return intention on proper return behavior was not significant
The results showed that the chain mediating effect of personal norms and return intention on the relationship between consequences awareness of the public environment and proper return behavior was significantly enhanced when residents’ personal health awareness level was higher

Summary

Introduction

Accepted: 14 September 2021With increasingly aging populations and the prevalence of chronic diseases, social medicine reserves and the number of unused or expired medicines are rapidly increasing.Unused medicine is a medicine that is still before its expiration date, but is no longer taken before its expiration date, has been forgotten in the corner of the family medicine box, and is likely to become an expired medicine; expired medicine is a medicine that exceeds its shelf life and can no longer be taken. With increasingly aging populations and the prevalence of chronic diseases, social medicine reserves and the number of unused or expired medicines are rapidly increasing. For diseases or symptoms that can be self-diagnosed, patients independently choose and use medicines for the treatment. Self-medication will lead to unreasonable use and unreasonable storage of medicines [2]. The gap between the use period and the rejection period of medicines leads to the storage of a large number of medicines, bringing about the problems of unused or expired medicines. Categorized as hazardous waste in the household waste return category, unused or expired medicines can pose a serious threat to public environments and personal health if the waste is not properly recycled and destroyed in time [3].

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