Australian Longitudinal Study on Women's Health
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Comparison of self-reported medications and PBS records

Approved: 2006

Collaborators:

  • Prof Julie Byles
  • A/Prof Anne Young
  • Prof Lynne Parkinson
  • Prof David Henry
  • Dr Xenia Dolja-Gore
  • Dr Sabrina Pit
  • A/Prof Geoff Morgan

Synopsis

This study assesses agreement between two measures of medicine use, self-report by mail and pharmaceutical claims data. This will assist in advising researchers and evaluators of health programs how to measure medicines use amongst women. Results demonstrated that older women are able to report medicines use accurately. Over-the-counter medicines, medicines not covered by Medicare and those used on an as needed basis may be best measured by self-report, as use may be underestimated using Medicare data. Pharmaceutical claims data can assist evaluation of correct medicines use, changes to availability and uptake of medicines, and track medicine expenditure for chronic conditions.