Abstract
The reasons for the fact that outpatients leave without receiving medicines dispensed at the pharmacy of University of Tokyo Hospital were studied. There were 412 prescriptions of unreceived medicines out of 14, 572 outpatient prescriptions in November 1974. Evident correlation was observed between the total numer of prescriptions a day and the number of prescriptions for unreceived medicines. The patients under 10, 21-30 and over 71 years of age did not receive more medicine than those in other age groups. Major reasons may be 1) young businessmen were too busy to wait long until their medicines were dispensed, and 2) infants and old patients were not in good physical conditions. Patients with chronic diseases most often left hospital without medicine. It can be concluded that the longer the waiting time for dispensing, the greater the number of unreceived medicines.
