%0 Journal Article %T Accuracy of self-reported medicines use compared to pharmaceutical claims data amongst a national sample of older Australian women %A Xenia Dolja-Gore %A Sabrina W. Pit %A Lynne Parkinson %A Anne Young %A Julie Byles %J Open Journal of Epidemiology %P 25-32 %@ 2165-7467 %D 2013 %I Scientific Research Publishing %R 10.4236/ojepi.2013.31005 %X

This study assessed agreement between two measures of medicine use, self-report by mail and pharmaceutical claims data, for a national sample (N = 4687) of older women aged 79 to84 in2005, from the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women¡¯s Health. Medicines used for common chronic diseases in older people were selected, with pharmaceutical claims data retrieval periods of three and six months. For six month retrieval, Kappa¡¯s ranged between 0.44 (nervous system medicines) and 0.94 (glucose lowering medicines). For three month retrieval, aspirin (Kappa: 0.35) and folic acid (Kappa = 0.48) had lowest agreement. Women were least able to accurately report use of nervous system medicines (sensitivity < 50%), and most accurately report glucose lowering medicines use (sensitivity > 80%). Specificity was consistently high across all classes, suggesting women could accurately report using a medicine. Pharmaceutical claims data can assist evaluation of judicious medicines use, changes to availability and uptake of medicines, and track medicine expenditure for chronic conditions. Over-the-counter medicines, medicines not covered by pharmaceutical subsidies and those used on an as needed basis may be best measured by self-report, as use may be underestimated using pharmaceutical claims data.

%K Medicines %K Ageing %K Agreement %K Women %K Self-Report %K Pharmacy Records %K Validation %K Survey %U http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=27899