Variations in non-prescription drug consumption and expenditure: Determinants and policy implications
| Autor: | Claudio Jommi, Patrizio Armeni, Monica Hildegard Otto |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2018 |
| Předmět: |
PHARMACEUTICAL POLICIES
Prevalence Distribution (economics) Nonprescription Drugs POLICY IMPACT Drug Costs 03 medical and health sciences 0302 clinical medicine Environmental health Linear regression Economics Humans 030212 general & internal medicine Consumption (economics) business.industry 030503 health policy & services Health Policy Incidence (epidemiology) Regression analysis Per capita income NON-PRESCRIPTION DRUG PHARMACEUTICAL POLICIES POLICY IMPACT DRUG COSTS HEALTH EXPENDITURES HUMANS ITALY NONPRESCRIPTION DRUGS ORGANIZATIONAL CASE STUDIES POLICY Policy Italy Organizational Case Studies NON-PRESCRIPTION DRUG Health Expenditures 0305 other medical science business Explanatory power |
| Zdroj: | Health Policy. 122:614-620 |
| ISSN: | 0168-8510 |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.healthpol.2018.01.012 |
| Popis: | This paper analyses the determinants of cross-regional variations in expenditure and consumption for non-prescription drugs using the Italian Health Care Service as a case study. This research question has never been posed in other literature contributions. Per capita income, the incidence of elderly people, the presence of distribution points alternative to community pharmacies (para-pharmacies and drug corners in supermarkets), and the disease prevalence were included as possible explanatory variables. A trade-off between consumption of non-prescription and prescription-only drugs was also investigated. Correlation was tested through linear regression models with regional fixed-effects. Demand-driven variables, including the prevalence of the target diseases and income, were found to be more influential than supply-side variables, such as the presence of alternative distribution points. Hence, the consumption of non-prescription drugs appears to respond to needs and is not induced by the supply. The expected trade-off between consumption for prescription-only and non-prescription drugs was not empirically found: increasing the use of non-prescription drugs did not automatically imply savings on prescription-only drugs covered by third payers. Despite some caveats (the short period of time covered by the longitudinal data and some missing monthly data), the regression model revealed a high explanatory power of the variability and a strong predictive ability of future values. |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
| Externí odkaz: |
|
Full Text from ScienceDirect