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Socio-economic and behavioral determinants of prescription and non-prescription medicine use: the case of Turkey

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Abstract

Background

Demographic and socio-economic factors determine pharmaceutical health care utilization for individuals. Prescription and non-prescription medicine use are expected to have different determinants. Even though prescription and non-prescription medicine use is being well researched for developed countries, there are only a few studies for developing countries.

Objectives

This paper aims to analyze the socio-economic and individual characteristics that determine the use of prescription and non-prescription medicine. We examine the issue for the specific case of Turkey since Turkey’s health system has undertaken significant changes in the last two decades and especially after 2003 with the “Health Transformation Programme”.

Methods

Data from the nationally representative “Health Survey” are used in the analysis. The data set covers the 2008–2016 period with two-year intervals. Pooled multivariate logistic regression is employed to identify the underlying determinants of prescription and non-prescription medicine use.

Results

When compared to 2008, non-prescription medicine use decreases until 2012, however, an increasing trend appears after 2012. For prescription medicine use, a decreasing trend emerges after 2012. Findings from the marginal effects indicate that for non-prescription medicine use, the highest effect stems from the health status. For prescription medicine use, the highest marginal effects arise from age, health and employment status indicating the importance of the need and predisposing factors.

Conclusion

Decreasing non-prescription medicine use largely depends on easier access to health care service utilization. Although having a health insurance has a positive relationship with prescription medicine use, there is still a problem for individuals living a rural area and heaving a lower income level since they are more likely to use non-prescription medicine.

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Notes

  1. Health problem and chronic disease variables described in Table 2 are also regressed separately in the place of the health status variable, and the results are found to be robust. All results are available at upon request.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Economics, Faculty of Administrative Sciences, Health Economics and Health Policy Research and Application Center, Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey

    Selcen Öztürk & Dilek Başar

  2. Department of Economics, Faculty of Administrative Sciences, Middle East Technical University, Ankara, Turkey

    İlhan Can Özen

  3. Department of Pediatric Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, Health Economics and Health Policy Research and Application Center, Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey

    Arbay Özden Çiftçi

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  1. Selcen Öztürk
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  2. Dilek Başar
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  4. Arbay Özden Çiftçi
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Contributions

SÖ and DB are responsible for study design. SÖ performed the data analysis. SÖ, DB, İCÖ and AÖÇ all contributed to writing and correcting the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Selcen Öztürk.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Not applicable. The data that support the findings of this study are available from Turkish Statistical Institute but restrictions apply to the availability of these data, which were used under license for the current study, and so are not publicly available.

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Öztürk, S., Başar, D., Özen, İ.C. et al. Socio-economic and behavioral determinants of prescription and non-prescription medicine use: the case of Turkey. DARU J Pharm Sci 27, 735–742 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40199-019-00311-1

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