Characteristics of unclaimed prescriptions in a college-aged population

Objective: Describe the frequency and characteristics of unclaimed prescriptions from a pharmacy embedded within a student health services clinic. Methods: Cross-sectional study of prescriptions received by an on-campus pharmacy between September 1-December 31, 2017 and September 1-December 31, 2018. Prescription data were extracted from the pharmacy administrative database and then categorized into medication classes and claimed versus unclaimed. Results: The pharmacy received 18,337 prescriptions during the study periods. Medications classified as central nervous system (n = 5101, 27.8%), hormones (n = 3976; 21.7%), and anti-infective (n = 3262, 17.8%) medications were most common. A total of 2,609 prescriptions (14.2%) were left unclaimed by patients. The frequency of unclaimed prescriptions varied across medication classes, ranging from 9.0% (anti-infective) to 34.1% (genitourinary). Conclusions: Approximately one in seven prescriptions went unclaimed at this on-campus pharmacy. Future research is needed to identify predictors for unclaimed prescriptions to develop effective interventions that improve medication adherence.