世論 What Japan Thinks

A recent survey from iShare looked at switch OTC medicines, the term used to refer to medicines that used to be only available on prescription, but have now switched to being available Over The Counter in pharmacies.

Demographics

Between the 24th and 28th of February 2011 641 members of the CLUB BBQ free email forwarding service completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 54.9% of the sample were male, 28.4% in their twenties, 32.6% in their thirties, and 39.0% in their forties.

Recently, the first medicine to become a Switch OTC medicine is loxoprofen sodium, a non-steroid anit-inflammatory drug, now manufactured and sold by Daiichi Mitsui Health Care as Loxonin S. Today I saw for the first time an advert for it, a sticker on a train door; having this survey in mind I actually paid attention for once! According to the advert below, it is being promoted for headaches and period pains.

Research results

Q1: Do you know what “switch OTC medicines” are? (Sample size=641)

	All	Male N=352	Female N=289
Yes (to SQs)	15.8%	14.8%	17.0%
Just heard the term	12.9%	11.9%	14.2%
No	71.3%	73.3%	68.9%

Q1SQ1: How did you come to know about switch OTC medicines? (Sample size=101)

	All	Male N=52	Female N=49
Internet news	25.7%	28.8%	22.4%
Newspaper, magazine	16.8%	21.2%	12.2%
Television	16.8%	19.2%	14.3%
Dispensing pharmacy	15.8%	13.5%	18.4%
Heard from friend	5.9%	3.8%	8.2%
Heard from doctor	4.0%	0.0%	8.2%
Blog, SNS	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%
Other	14.9%	13.5%	16.3%

Q1SQ2: Have you ever bought a switch OTC medicine? (Sample size=101)

	All	Male N=52	Female N=49
Yes	9.9%	9.6%	10.2%
No	90.1%	90.4%	89.8%

Q2: Switch OTC medicines have the merit of being able to buy them without needing to see a doctor, but the demerit of the risk of side-effects. Would you like to see the number of switch OTC medicines increase? (Sample size=641)

	All	Male N=352	Female N=289
Want them to increase greatly	12.9%	18.5%	6.2%
Want them to increase a little	47.1%	44.6%	50.2%
Don’t really want them to increase	32.4%	29.5%	36.0%
Don’t want them to increase at all	7.5%	7.4%	7.6%