20 August 2008 - A psychology study on medication use will explore the symbolic significance, rather than the pharmacological function, of drugs and health remedies in the daily lives of New Zealanders.

Psychologists Professor Chamberlain and Helen Madden, from Massey's School of Psychology in Auckland, will manage the project and head up a team of researchers from Waikato, Otago and Victoria Universities to investigate popular understandings of medications and their use.

The study, funded by the Health Research Council, will consider all forms of medications, medical drugs, alternative medicines and dietary supplements in an attempt to determine whether some medication consumption is "life-saving or life-styling", Professor Chamberlain says.

"It aims to develop new knowledge about the meanings of medications, their safety and risk, and the influence of media and social processes in their use and misuse."

The idea for the study arose from Professor Chamberlain's observations that the role of medication in people's lives in the 21st century has become increasingly complex with the advent of direct advertising of pharmacological drugs, the influx of over-the-counter medications, internet-based medical information as well as the profusion of alternative medicines, natural remedies and dietary supplements.

A psychological approach to understanding attitudes and behaviour in relation to taking medication is important given the huge investment by the health system, with government drug funding agency Pharmac's community drug bill at $563 million for the year to June 2006.

He says the potential for harmful impacts on health through misuse of medication is a key consideration of the study.

"We know little about what happens with medications when taken home, why people do what they do with medications, or how they are understood by people."

Previous studies have shown that overall adherence to medication regimes is only about 50 per cent.

Professor Chamberlain says the need for a study is imperative in an age in which "the boundaries between drugs, food and dietary supplements are blurring", and where "the ingestion of many substances is increasingly considered to be a routine practice, somewhat like eating an apple or having a drink of water, rather than taking a pill in a traditional medical sense".

He says there is a growing concern that the changing nature of medicine, through increased direct marketing of pharmaceuticals such as pain relief, cough mixtures and weight loss medication, has led to "passive medicalisation", whereby consumers seek their own health solutions largely uncontrolled by the medical profession.

The wide range of medical issues frequently covered in the news media, such as the debate over funding for breast cancer drug Herceptin, means consumers often find it hard to make sense of conflicting views, he says.

The research team will gather data from four domains - households where someone suffers a chronic illness, homes with children, community discussion groups and media representations, and will analyse the data in collaboration with two United Kingdom-based professors.

The study, a first for New Zealand, recognises that "medications have 'social lives' as well as pharmacological lives", says Professor Chamberlain. "Once in the hands of people, they represent not only relief from suffering or the maintenance of health, but also represent identity, morality, relationships, care, healing and hope, amongst other things."