Pharmaco-epidemiological study of drug consumption in the preproductive age period

Based on the global hypothesis of drug consumption being a function of human age and growing with its increase, an analysis of that dependence was carried out in the preproductive interval of the human lifetime. The experiment included a total metropolitan population of 450,000, involving all outpatient prescriptions of all physicians in the area. The paper shows results obtained over a period of two years. The methodology, based on the expression of drug consumption in numbers of original package and in terms of financial costs, enabled to formulate the course of this dependence and to define its structure. It was found that preproductive age drug consumption shows a characteristically declining trend, progressively descending from a post-natal maximum to local minimums appearing in the 15-19 year (costs), and 20-24 year (number of packages) age groups, respectively; in addition, it shows sex-specific differences and has the analytical shape of a 2nd degree polynomial. After the local minimums the curve begins to ascend according to the characteristic trend in the productive period of the human lifetime.