Purpose. The objective of the current study was to determine the prevalence and practice of unused and expired medicine among Saudi adults. Subjects and Methods. The study used cross-sectional web-based design to collect the data, over a period of 4 months among people who are living in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Results. A total of 337 questionnaires were obtained during the study period. The majority of respondents were university graduates (74.7%). The prevalence of unused medicine was (89.3%). The most commonly used drugs were nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (80.7%) and antibiotics (48.7%). Of the participants, 186 (55.2%) checked the expiry date of the medicine before they purchase. Most of them (90.5%) obtained medicine through prescription. About (65%) of them keep the medicine until it expired; 48.1% throw away in the household garbage while only 18 (5.4%) of the respondents said to give it back to the medical store. Conclusion. The study revealed a high prevalence of unused medications among Saudi community. However, the disposable practice among the Saudi community was inadequate. Increasing awareness through education programs about proper disposable guidelines is necessary for controlling the medication wastage.

中文翻译：

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未使用和过期药物的流行和实践——在沙特阿拉伯利雅得的沙特阿拉伯成年人中以社区为基础的研究。

目的。本研究的目的是确定沙特成年人中未使用和过期药物的流行和使用情况。主题和方法。该研究使用基于网络的横断面设计来收集数据，在 4 个月内对居住在沙特阿拉伯利雅得的人们进行了研究。结果。研究期间共收到问卷337份。大部分受访者是大学毕业生(74.7%)。未使用药物的流行率是（89.3%）。最常用的药物是非甾体类抗炎药(80.7%) 和抗生素(48.7%)。在参与者中，186 人（55.2%）在购买前检查了药品的有效期。他们中的大多数（90.5%）通过处方获得药物。关于(65%) 他们保留药物直到过期；48.1% 的人将其丢弃在生活垃圾中，而只有 18 人（5.4%）的受访者表示会将其归还给医疗用品商店。结论。该研究揭示了沙特社区中未使用药物的高流行率。然而，沙特社区的一次性做法是不够的。通过教育计划提高对适当一次性指南的认识对于控制药物浪费是必要的。