Abstract
Objective: This study is the first to investigate the incidence of personal importation of prescription medicines among Australians aged 45 years or older, and the reasons driving this behaviour.
Methods: An online survey was distributed to Australians, aged 45 years or older, who were taking prescription medicines. Recruitment was conducted via Qualtrics. The survey was completed by 1180 respondents.
Results: In our sample, 1.8% of respondents had imported prescription medicines in the previous 12 months, 21.9% had not taken, or had delayed taking, a prescribed medicine due to cost, 21.9% described medicines as unaffordable/very unaffordable, and 17.7% took some budgetary measure to pay for their medicines. The most significant predictors (P < 0.001) of importation were doctors raising it as an option (1.0% vs 42.9%), awareness of the Personal Importation Scheme (0.8% vs 22.6%), believing that importing was safe (1.6% vs 20.9%), paying more than the maximum PBS co-payment for any individual medicine (0.4% vs 8.1%), higher monthly spend on medicines (1.0% vs 6%), and delaying or not taking a medicine due to cost (0.9% vs 5.0%). Almost half (44.4%) would consider importing medicines to save money.
Conclusions: Potentially hundreds of thousands of Australians are importing prescription medicines from abroad, and many Australians indicate they are willing to import medicines to save money.
Original language | English |
---|---|
Pages (from-to) | 694-699 |
Number of pages | 6 |
Journal | Australian Health Review |
Volume | 47 |
Issue number | 6 |
Early online date | 20 Nov 2023 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Dec 2023 |
Keywords
- e-health
- financial toxicity
- health policy
- health services research
- non-adherence
- parallel importation
- personal importation
- pharmaceuticals
- quality
- safety