Change in acute medication use compared to baseline was calculated for all acute medication uses (average number of uses per week), as well as separately for triptans and oxygen.
It comprises subscales for different domains of diabetes self-care behaviours, including general diet, exercise, blood glucose testing, foot care and medication using the average number of days per week (ie, 0 7) each self-care activity has been performed.
In order to calculate the costs for medication, we used average charges for analgesics, antibiotics and additional medications.
An average of medication use in the 4 countries shows that patients took 1.32 medicines.
Fifth, an estimation bias may have occurred in the calculation of medication costs using average wholesale price (AWP; discounted by 15% for atypical antipsychotics).
The average prevalence of medication use was 5.6%, in line with previous findings [ 12, 21].
Among the 4 participating countries, self-reported medication use indicated that patients took, on average, 1.3 medicines that are known to be driving-impairing.
Trends in medication use are given in Figure 4 and average daily doses are shown in Table 2.
Our data suggest that the proportion of individuals reporting medication use in each age group and the average number of medications being used per person remained steady between 1994 1995 and 1998 1999.
Daily medication use was reported by 46%% (n = 366) and, on average, the participants reported using acute medication 23.5 days/month.
