It has been reported that there is a difference in drug prescription between males and females. Even after adjustment for multi-morbidity, females tend to use more prescription drugs compared to males.
In this study, we wanted to analyse whether the gender difference in drug treatment could be explained by gender-related morbidity.
Methods:
Data was collected on all individuals 20 years and older in the county of Ostergotland in Sweden. The Johns Hopkins ACG Case-Mix System was used to calculate individual level of multi-morbidity.
A report from the Swedish National Institute of Public Health using the WHO term DALY was the basis for gender-related morbidity. Prescription drugs used to treat diseases that mainly affect females were excluded from the analyses.
Results:
The odds of having prescription drugs for males, compared to females, increased from 0.45 (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.44-0.46) to 0.82 (95% CI 0.81-0.83) after exclusion of prescription drugs that are used to treat diseases that mainly affect females.
Conclusion:
Gender-related morbidity and the use of anti-conception drugs may explain a large part of the difference in prescription drug use between males and females but still there remains a difference between the genders at 18%.
This implicates that it is of importance to take the gender-related morbidity into consideration, and to exclude anti-conception drugs, when performing studies regarding difference in drug use between the genders.
Author: Jessica SkoogPatrik MidlövLars BorgquistJan SundquistAnders Halling
Credits/Source: BMC Public Health 2014, 14:329
Published on: 2014-04-08
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