Investigation of social, demographic and health variations in the usage of prescribed and over-the-counter medicines within a large cohort (South Yorkshire, UK)

Green, Mark A ORCID: 0000-0002-0942-6628, Little, Emma, Cooper, Richard, Relton, Clare and Strong, Mark (2016) Investigation of social, demographic and health variations in the usage of prescribed and over-the-counter medicines within a large cohort (South Yorkshire, UK). BMJ OPEN, 6 (9). e012038-.

Text paper_bmj_open_revised_3_clean.docx - Author Accepted Manuscript Download (135kB)

Abstract

<h4>Objectives</h4>Prescribed and over-the-counter (non-prescribed) medicine usage has increased in recent years; however, there has been less investigation of the socioeconomic predictors of use. This has been due to a lack of data, especially for over-the-counter medicines. Our study aims to understand how prescribed and over-the-counter medicine patterns vary by demographic, social and health characteristics within a large population cohort.<h4>Design</h4>Cross-sectional data analysis.<h4>Setting</h4>South Yorkshire, UK.<h4>Participants</h4>27 806 individuals from wave 1 of the Yorkshire Health Study (2010-2012).<h4>Measures</h4>Individuals self-reported each medicine they were taking and whether each was prescribed or not. The medicines were grouped into 14 categories (eg, cardiovascular system, infection, contraception). Negative binomial regression models were used to analyse the count of medicine usage. We included demographic (age, gender, ethnicity), social (education), health-related (body mass index, smoking, alcohol consumption, physical activity) factors and chronic health conditions (eg, stroke, anxiety and heart disease) in our analyses.<h4>Results</h4>49% of men and 62% of women were taking medicine with the majority of this prescribed (88% and 83%, respectively). Health conditions were found to be positively associated with prescribed medicine usage, but mixed in their associated with over-the-counter medicines. Educational attainment was negatively associated with prescribed and positively associated with over-the-counter usage.<h4>Conclusions</h4>Our study addresses a dearth of evidence to provide new insights into how behaviours in medicine usage vary by demographic, social and health-related factors. Differences in over-the-counter medicine usage by educational attainment may help our understanding of the determinants of health inequalities.

Item Type:	Article
Uncontrolled Keywords:	EPIDEMIOLOGY, PUBLIC HEALTH, SOCIAL MEDICINE
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	22 Sep 2016 09:29
Last Modified:	19 Jan 2023 07:29
DOI:	10.1136/bmjopen-2016-012038
Related URLs:	Author Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3003422