ANALYSIS OF FACTORS AFFECTING THE AVAILABILITY OF ANTI-ALLERGIC ANTIHISTAMINES
This article presents the analysis of factors affecting the availability of anti-allergic antihistamines among physicians, pharmaceutical specialists and patients. The results showed that the foreground criteria for antihistamine selection for all consumers were drug effectiveness, duration of action and safety. It was also revealed that for all of the respondents mattered the drug price and its advertising by media what can results in irrational use of antihistamines by the patients. To increase the availability of antihistamines it is necessary to teach the consumers health literacy, ability to collect and evaluate the information obtained from informal sources for the opportunity to choose the optimal antihistamine. It´s necessary to increase the access for physicians and pharmaceutical specialists to official sources of information which contain objective information about drugs and allow to make an informed decision about taking antihistamines.