Over-the-counter drug consumption and related factors, evidence from the European Health Interview Survey

The aim of this work is to find the factors related to over-the-counter drug (OTC) consumption in Europe considering the differences in OTC market regulation.

A sample obtained from the European Health Interview Survey (EHIS) of 2019 is used to estimate a logistic regression. This sample includes 286,413 people from 26 countries. The outcome variable is derived from the question about the use of non-prescribed drugs. The independent variables include a set of predisposing, enabling, and need factors. Finally, countries with similar OTC retail market regulations are considered to control for heterogeneity in this regard.

The main findings show that OTC market deregulation is not strictly related to the share of OTC consumption. Despite some heterogeneity based on the type of OTC retail market regulation, there is a set of common drivers for its use by people across countries, such as age, gender, education, suffering from chronic disease or pain and being on a waiting list for medical treatment. When considering individual country and cluster of countries controls, there are some relevant results such as the role played by accessibility to pharmacies and OTC retailers; the positive correlation between OTC drugs and prescribed drug consumption, and the positive correlation between unmet health care needs due to financial household constraints and OTC drugs use.

There is no clear relationship between OTC drug use and OTC retail market regulation. There are several predisposing, enabling, and need factors that promote the use of OTC drugs. The relevant policies relate to the inequal access to OTC drugs across countries that may result from different market regulations and different consumption drivers.