Furthermore, frequent medicine and medical supply shortages and stock-outs within health facilities [14, 15, 19] may result in 'zero' prescription expenditure being reported not because medication was received free of charge but because prescribed medicines were not available.
A number of measures were collected for the purpose of characterising the total cohort at baseline, in terms of age, sex, length of stay in the nursing home, most frequent diseases, most frequent medicine prescribed and walking/mobility aids (Table 1 and Table 2).
In our study questionnaires, the Chinese herbal medicine items considered were Angelicae sinensis radix, Lycii fructus, Zizyphi fructu, and Si-Wu-Tang; these were selected because they are most frequent herbal medicines used by women of childbearing age for achieving optimal health in Chinese society [ 35].
They are derived from DRL for the most frequent nuclear medicine studies.
For example, in science degree programs, practical classes were common whereas PBL tutorials (or a variation of this mode) were relatively frequent in medicine programs and rare in science degrees.
This has led to frequent shortages of medicines and increased providers' workload, and hence probably less attention spent on clients.
Some respondents (6/26) felt that this group had more difficulties in ordering their repeat prescriptions than younger people, but others (3/26) felt that this was simply related to the more frequent use of medicines in this group.
Public hospitals are also known to suffer from many problems including understaffing and the frequent shortages of medicines and supplies which cause patients to wait for a long time before receiving services [ 14].
Additionally, the financial incentives that manufacturers provide to hospitals and doctors might also lead to the frequent use of medicines with higher prices due to the persistence of widespread corruption in the procurement process [ 23– 25].
After the 1990s the public health care system is characterised by a low level of investments, a limited number of physicians (mainly concentrated in the big cities and the capital of the country), low quality of services, unqualified staff, unmotivated medical personnel, and frequent lack of medicines in public hospitals [ 15- 17].
