Abstract
Objective: To evaluate the knowledge of health professionals and students on the proper disposal of medicines. Methods: This is a descriptive, validation study, developed in four stages. First stage was content validation, second stage was semantic validation, third stage was final consensual validation and fourth stage was the application of validated questionnaires. The study was carried out between April 2018 and December 2019, approved with opinion number 3,231,070, according to Resolution 510/2016. 53.65% of professionals and 10% of health students from the institutions participated. Results: Of these, 53.64% of professionals and 62.86% of students dispose of medicines inappropriately in the common garbage; 87.27% of the professionals and 87.43% of the students affirm that they do not know the sanitary and environmental laws in force on the disposal of medicines, and only 7.27% among the professionals and 4.57% among the students say they have knowledge to guide the people how to dispose of drugs properly. Conclusion: The study points out that the majority of participating health professionals and students still do not have knowledge about proper drug disposal.