The continuing concern over medication safety in China: propagating old-fashioned medicine over traditional communication channels (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Individuals’ perception of medication drug safety affects their adherence to their drug regime and through adherence to their health. China is among the countries with the largest number of medical drug consumers. Chinese citizens are facing a complex drug market that contains a variety of both traditional Chinese (TCM) and western medicine; meanwhile, the continuing safety scandals considerably impaired public confidence in medication drug. However, attention paid to their drug safety perception is few. OBJECTIVE Our study aims to answer a series of questions concerning drug safety perceptions in the Chinese context. We examined Chinese citizens' general drug safety perceptions and explored concerns about several frequently used drugs. Questions on how health information exposure and personal healthcare experience affect drug safety perceptions will be answered, and persons’ reliance on information sources in the drug safety crisis will be ascertained. METHODS Data from HINTS-China 2017 contains 3090 adults. The dataset was weighted before inferential analysis due to the overrepresentation of female respondents. We applied multiple linear regressions to examine the relations between drug safety perception and media exposure as well as personal healthcare experience. Respondents’ choice of unsafe drugs and information sources to rely on in drug safety crises were displayed in descriptive statistics. RESULTS Chinese people generally do not believe the current drug safety situation is satisfying and do not think it has improved in recent years. Their strong concerns are also reflected in their distrust in the safety antibiotics and vaccines. Exposure to Internet health information was negatively associated with drug safety perception (Drug safety quo: β = -.149, p < .001; drug safety amelioration (β = -.065, p= .042). However tradition media exposure was positively correlated (Drug safety quo: β = 121, p < .001; drug safety amelioration β = .107, p < .001). Satisfaction with health care services positively linked to safety perception (Drug safety quo: β = .271, p < .001; drug safety amelioration β = .182, p < .001). Physicians were considered the most reliable group in drug safety incidents. CONCLUSIONS Chinese citizens’ concerns about drug safety were accompanied by strong distrust in antibiotics and vaccines. Several determinants of safety perceptions were identified including internet health information exposure, traditional media health information exposure and personal healthcare experiences. New insights into the role of physicians were added to the literature by showing the firmest reliance on health information from physicians in drug safety incidents.