2020 年 46 巻 4 号 p. 222-229
This study clarifies the storage situation of drugs that require light-protection at patients’ homes, and reveals the proper storage conditions of these drugs.
We interviewed inpatients about the storage situation of drugs for light-protection. In addition, we measured light illuminance on the desktop (J), inside of a storage case (C) of the pill-shelf, inside medicine envelopes: white-color (YW), pink-color (YP) and black inside (YB), and lightproof plastic bags (S) at our prescription department.
Eighty-four percent of patients were not consciously protecting the drugs from light at home. As for the storage form of those patients, “storage in medicine envelopes / storage in non-lightproof plastic bags with a sealer or pill case / storage from medicine envelopes as is” were respectively 43, 41, and 17 percent. The illuminance of J was 696-811 lx. The illuminance of C, YW, YP, YB and S decreased to values corresponding to 6-13, 21-22, 15, 0.9, and 0.3-0.4 percent against J, respectively. We found that many patients have problems with drug storage situations.
As a result of the illuminance measurement, it was clear that storage in C and each medicine envelope have certain light protection effects. It was considered that YB might be useful as a storage condition for drugs that require light-protection, because a shielding effect of 99 percent was observed under 800 lx. These results were one indicator of the effects of exposure to light depending on the storage condition of the drug.
