A Preliminary Evaluation of Drug-seeking Behavior in Taiwan: The Case of Zolpidem
Date Issued
2014
Date
2014
Author(s)
Yu, Ming-Hua
Abstract
Background: Prescription drug abuse is one of the important problems in public health, and among which, doctor shopping is regarded as a serious behavior. Many people may get the same prescription drugs through different doctors repeatedly, which is called drug-seeking behavior. Zolidem, a prescription medication used for the treatment of insomnia, has been abused in Taiwan recently. This study aims to explore how drug-seekers get Zolpidem and the relevant factors associated with their consumption. We use a new method to estimate the relative parts of legitimate prescriptions and doctor shopping on the prescription database of NHI. Additionly, we also examine the connection between continuity of care(COC) and drug-seeking behavior.
Objective: We use doctor shopping indicator (DSI) to calculate the potential drug-seeking behaviors of Zolpidem in Taiwan. Besides, we want to understand the influence of COC on drug-seeking behavior.
Methods: We extract all the prescriptions of Zolpidem from National Health Insurance Registry of 2009. Moreover, we use propensity score matching (PSM) to reduce the bias between treatment and control groups on a large number of covariates. We profile the factors influencing non-users, users, and drug seekers with multinomial logistic regression.
Results: A total of 29,207 users are included in this study and the DSI is 7.54%. There are 2,420 persons who have drug-seeking behavior and their DSI is 27.8%. However, compared with people who don’t have this behavior, their DSI is only 0.5%. The result of logistic regression shows that Charlson comorbidity index and insurance degree are two factors significantly associated with the use of Zolpidem for the young and middle-aged drug-seekers. The drug-seekers of Family Medicine and General Medicine get more Zolpidem than other people. For elders, Charlson comorbidity index and density of doctors are two important factors significantly associated with the use of Zolpidem. Besides, higher COC indices are associated with lower prescription drug abuse, especially for the elders.
Conclusions: Drug-seeking behavior is increasing in Taiwan, which may cause serious prescription drug abuse problems. Health policymakers and the academic communities should begin to investigate the drug-seekers’ purposes and the possible effects of drug-seeking behavior on their health. Additionally, we should develop new regulatory guides and prescription monitoring programs for their abuse.
Subjects
尋藥行為
重複領藥比例
逛醫生
處方藥濫用
史蒂諾斯
SDGs
Type
thesis
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