Researchers from University of Leeds Describe Findings in Health Insurance (Copayments for prescription medicines on a public health insurance scheme…

Researchers from University of Leeds Describe Findings in Health Insurance (Copayments for prescription medicines on a public health insurance scheme in Ireland)

By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Insurance Weekly News -- Current study results on Health Insurance have been published. According to news reporting from Leeds, United Kingdom, by VerticalNews journalists, research stated, "PurposeWe assessed the impact of the introduction of a Euro0.50 prescription copayment, and its increase to Euro1.50, on adherence to essential and less-essential medicines in a publicly insured population in Ireland. MethodsWe used a pre-post longitudinal repeated measures design."

The news correspondents obtained a quote from the research from the University of Leeds, "We included new users of essential medicines: blood pressure lowering, lipid lowering and oral diabetic agents, thyroid hormone, anti-depressants, and less-essential medicines: non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), Proton Pump Inhibitors/H-2 antagonists (PPIs/H-2), and anxiolytics/hypnotics. The outcome was change in adherence, measured using Proportion of Days Covered. We used segmented regression with generalised estimating equations to allow for repeated measurements. ResultsSample sizes ranged from 7145 (thyroid hormone users) to 136111 (NSAID users). The Euro0.50 copayment was associated with reductions in adherence ranging from -2.1%[95% CI, -2.8 to -1.5] (thyroid hormone) to -8.3%[95% CI, -8.7 to -7.9] (anti-depressants) for essential medicines and reductions in adherence of -2%[95% CI, -2.3 to -1.7] (anxiolytics/hypnotics) to -9.5%[95% CI, -9.8 to -9.1] (PPIs/H-2) for less-essential medicines. The Euro1.50 copayment generally resulted in smaller reductions in adherence to essential medicines. Anti-depressant medications were the exception with a decrease of -10.0% [95% CI, -10.4 to -9.6] after the copayment increase. Larger decreases in adherence were seen for most less-essential medicines; the largest was for PPIs/H-2 at -13.5% [95% CI, -13.9 to -13.2] after the Euro1.50 copayment. ConclusionBoth copayments had a greater impact on adherence to less-essential medicines than essential medicines. The major exception was for anti-depressant medicines."

According to the news reporters, the research concluded: "Further research is required to explore heterogeneity across different socio-economic strata and to elicit the impact on clinical outcomes."

For more information on this research see: Copayments for prescription medicines on a public health insurance scheme in Ireland. Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety, 2016;25(6):695-704. Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety can be contacted at: Wiley-Blackwell, 111 River St, Hoboken 07030-5774, NJ, USA. (Wiley-Blackwell - www.wiley.com/; Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety - onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(ISSN)1099-1557)

Our news journalists report that additional information may be obtained by contacting S.J. Sinnott, University of Leeds, Sch Dental, Leeds LS2 9JT, W Yorkshire, United Kingdom. Additional authors for this research include C. Normand, S. Byrne, N. Woods and H. Whelton.

Keywords for this news article include: Leeds, United Kingdom, Europe, Thyroid Hormones, Health Insurance, Public Health, University of Leeds.

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