| Summary: | 碩士 === 臺北醫學大學 === 醫務管理學研究所 === 103 === Background: The uses of hypnotics and zolpidem both have significantly increased in Taiwan in recent years, especially among women. Appropriate use of zolpidem is thus an important issue. Taiwan National Health Insurance Administration has asked every authorized hospital to check patients’ medical records before prescribing Nimetazepam, Flunitrazepam, and Zolpidem since February 1, 2013. We assume that the inappropriate prescriptions of zolpidem during this duration were prescribed deliberately.
Objective: The objective of this study is to find the influential factors on inappropriate prescriptions of zolpidem among female users.
Method: This is a retrospective study with NHIRD secondary database. We identify incident female users of zolpidem who had received the first prescription January 1, 2012 to December 31, 2013 from LHID2000. We use SAS as our statistical software to explore the influential factors on inappropriate prescriptions of zolpidem among Taiwanese women.
Result: 167,182 cases of female zolpidem users were detected during the study period. In the “patient characteristics” section, the influential factors on inappropriate presciptions of zolpidem among Taiwanese women are the age, the specialty, the social status, and the urban/rural difference of the patient. In the “hospital characteristics” section, the influential factors are the level and the ownership of the hospital. In the “physician characteristics” section, the influential factors are the age, the specialty, and the years of specialty of the physician.
Conclusion: Zolpidem should be prescribed carefully and the female should be provided with sufficient patient education. Public hospitals and clinics should be audited more frequently. Furthermore, psychiatrist visits accounted for most part of inappropriate prescriptions of zolpidem among Taiwan women, and this is a big issue which should be discussed seriously.
Key words: Zolpidem; inappropriate prescriptions; women
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