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Factors Associated with Women's Medication Use

Jennifer Payne, MSc; Robert Cho; Marie Desmeules, MSc (Health Canada); and Ineke Neutel, PhD (SCO Health Services Inc.)The authors thank Rose Odili, B Pharm, for her assistance in separating medications into Rx and OTC categories.

Health Issue

Research in Canada and internationally has consistently shown that while women generally live longer than men, they report more illness and use of health care services (including medication) than men throughout their adult lives. In the literature, the reasons for women's elevated medication use are not clear. This chapter uses data from the National Population Health Survey (NPHS 1994-1995, 1996-1997, and 1998-1999) to investigate the associations between prescription (Rx) and over-the-counter (OTC) medication use and selected social and demographic variables in males and females. Multivariate analysis (logistic regression) was used to determine the association between using prescription medications (i.e. having taken one of a selection of prescription medications in the preceding two days) and social-role status (being a parent, partner, or worker), taking into account potential confounding variables such as age, education, income, chronic diseases, physician visits, and pain experience.

Key Findings

While a larger proportion (about 50%) of women than men 20+ years used medication throughout the period 1994-1995 to 1998-1999, the proportion of people using medication did not increase for the period. The use of OTC and Rx medication increased by number of physician visits for women and men. The female-to-male ratio for Rx medication use, however, decreased with increasing number of physician visits. For OTC medications, the relationship was less consistent.

The patterns of medication use differed for women and men depending on their level of education (higher education includes those with more than high-school education or a college or university degree; lower education includes those with high-school education or less). In all education groups, medication use increased with age, chronic disease, and number of physician visits, and decreased with the perception of good to excellent health. The relationship with other factors, however, was variable. For women, the social roles of being married or previously married, being employed, or being a parent did not increase their likelihood of medication use. In fact, medication use was lower among more highly educated women who were parents and among previously married women with lower educational level than in the comparison groups. Reported income adequacy is not associated with the chances of medication use (Rx and OTC) among highly educated women, whereas for women with low levels of education, medication use increases as income adequacy decreases. Additionally, having drug insurance seems to significantly reduce the chances of reported medication use in both men and women with a high educational level.

A comparison with factors associated with men's medication use is available in the full chapter.

Data Gaps and Recommendations

The authors identified the following data gaps and made the following recommendations:

• More complete data are needed about social roles, particularly their quality, to better understand the relation between roles and medication use. While there is information on marital status, no data are available about women's perceived quality of their relationships, relationship duration, or about same-sex relationships. A similar gap exists with regard to contextual information about parenting: although the question in the survey asked for "number of children less than 6 living in the household," the amount of time spent on childcare or on household activities was not given. Having a better understanding of the context surrounding women's social roles would facilitate interpretation of the results.
• Data that would allow an assessment of the appropriateness of OTC and Rx drug use or the reasons for such use were not available and need to be collected.
• More research is needed to better understand the distribution and determinants of specific medication use.

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