An Emerging Model for Purchase and Consumption of Non-Prescription Drugs

This paper presents the results of exploratory surveys which describe the behavior of the buyer and consumer of over-the-counter (OTC) drugs. The results are summarized in a simple decision model which describes the information search process under various conditions of symptom severity, user satisfaction and brand familiarity. Implications are discussed for regulating problem consumption. In particular, advertising and labeling regulations seem unlikely to reduce patterns of heavy usage observed in the research. Problems arising from the self medication process must be examined in a broader context of health care behavior.