ISSN:
1432-1041
Keywords:
drug use
;
defined daily dose (DDD)
;
estimation of drug use
;
prescription monitoring
Source:
Springer Online Journal Archives 1860-2000
Topics:
Chemistry and Pharmacology
,
Medicine
Notes:
Summary To evaluate the accuracy of the DDD per 1000 inhabitants per unit time as an estimate of the fraction of drug users within a population, DDD figures have been compared with the proportion of apparent drug users, i.e. individuals in the population for who a prescriptions had been dispensed. An individual-based prescription monitoring project provided the necessary data for eight drugs representing continuous long-term medication, short-term medication and medication falling in between those two categories. For digoxin, the long-term drug, the number of DDD/1000 inhabitants/day was about 40% below the proportion of apparent drug users. The DDD figure for antibiotics ranged from 4% below to 28% above the apparent users, and for the remaining drugs it ranged from 17% below (bendroflumethiazide, 1982) to 80% below (naproxen, 1985). The DDD methodology is a valuable first step in overall drug use measurement, but for more precise estimates of drug use it must be supplemented by other techniques.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/BF00315097
