Up to a third of older participants in the current study used either CAM or OTC medicines. The study differed from Australian studies conducted earlier in several ways [6, 12–14]. Firstly, this study focused on a targeted population, namely elderly people aged 65 and older in South Australia. The study also sought to provide a broader insight into the self-medication practices of the elderly in examining use of both CAM and OTC medicines and reasons for use.
Fewer elderly people in our survey reported use of OTC medicines (10% to 17%) compared to a range of 31% to 97% in other surveys [15–19]. However, these surveys were carried out in the United States (US). The discrepancies observed may be explained by differences in the definition of OTC medicines and differences in subsidised accessibility to prescription medicines between Australia and the US. Non-prescription vitamins and minerals are considered as OTC medicines by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and CAM by the TGA [11, 20]. Furthermore, there is no national subsidisation scheme for pharmaceuticals in the US while in Australia, residents may prefer to get most medicines on prescription due to low co-payment fees. This is particularly relevant for medicines such as paracetamol which is widely used in both countries and which is available as a subsidised prescription medicine only in Australia.
The reported use of CAM (8.6% to 24.2%) in our study was lower than in previous Australian studies (37% to 58%) [6, 14, 21–23]. Several differences in the methods used may account for this variation. All but two of the previous studies included alternative services such as acupuncture, massage and chiropractic in their definition of CAM. The time interval over which participants reported has also varied. A 2004 survey in South Australia found 37% of people older than 65 years were CAM users but participants were asked whether they had used any CAM over the past year [6]. A study with a similar definition of use to this current study in terms of time interval and products surveyed reported 43% of CAM use [21]. However, the format of the interview where examples of each type of supplement were provided may have prompted more reports of CAM use [21]. A recent study in Iceland was conducted using similar methods to ALSA where simultaneous recording of herbal and dietary supplements (HADS) and prescription medicine use was carried out [24]. This study reported a prevalence of 80% of HADS use among their participants.
The top three classes of OTC drugs used by our respondents did not change between 1992 and 2004 and were similar to those described previously in the 1989-1990 Australian National Health Survey [25]. Analgesics were the most commonly used class of OTC medicines, predominantly paracetamol. Painful chronic conditions are prevalent in the elderly and therefore, many are amenable to treatment by OTC analgesics. Other international studies have also found analgesics to be the most commonly reported OTC class, though aspirin and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) were more commonly used than paracetamol [7, 15, 18, 19]. It is unclear whether in these studies all aspirin use was grouped under analgesics but in our study, we distinguished between aspirin used at low dose as an antiplatelet agent or at a higher dose as an analgesic agent based on the medicine strength and indication of use. Low dose aspirin was found to be the third most commonly reported class of OTC drugs in our study.
Vitamins and minerals, herbal medicines and nutritional supplements were the three most common classes of CAM reported across all waves. This is consistent with findings reported in other Australian studies [9, 21, 22]. Multivitamins accounted for about one-third of all CAM used across the waves, followed by Vitamins C, B and E in agreement with the results of previous studies [21–26]. The most common herbal product to be reported in this study was garlic, also in agreement with other studies [21, 26], with gingko biloba, marketed for age-related memory impairment, gaining popularity in the latest waves. Cod liver oil was the most popular nutritional supplement across all waves, with glucosamine use emerging as a treatment for arthritis after 2001, consistent with Brownie's prediction in 2000 [21]. One reason for the more recent emergence of this product in the study may be the shift towards inclusion of this product as part of conventional care.
None of the demographic variables tested, age, gender, education, tertiary education, income level and self-rated health was found to be associated with OTC use. The relationship of age and OTC use is equivocal in the literature [7, 16, 27, 28]. Greater OTC use was observed in females in the US studies that included multivitamin use [7, 16, 27, 28]. Greater educational attainment and poorer self-rated health have been associated with higher use of OTC in some studies [15, 16, 27].
Female gender and a younger age were the only variables found to be associated with CAM use in our study, in agreement with previous studies [12, 14, 15, 21, 23, 26, 29]. Possible explanations for CAM use were not available in the data because ALSA participants were not asked about attitudinal or psychological factors involved in their choice of medicines. A literature review of variables reported to influence the use of complementary medicines by consumers suggested that the emergence of postmodern values provided the best explanation of consumers' interest in CAM[9]. Postmodern values involved "a new set of beliefs about nature, science, holistic medicine, rejection of authority, individual responsibility and consumerism" [9]. A recent survey of attitudes of Australian consumers to complementary medicines found that many consumers saw their CAM use as "natural" and part of a holistic view of health [30].
Reasons reported for using OTC medicines were consistent with the indications approved by the Australian medicines agency with the exception of low-dose aspirin for which between 5.9% and 40.0% of participants reported unlikely reasons. The most common reasons for use of multivitamins were supplementation and maintenance of general health. In a 2004 Australian study that examined beliefs in CAM users, most respondents had no specific medical reason for using CAM but believed they would help their general health. Promotion of general health and prevention of illness were also found the main variables driving the use of CAM in other international studies [9]. Some CAM could also be used for the treatment of symptoms such as glucosamine for arthritis.
There were some potential limitations to our study. Although there was an apparent overall increase of participants reported use of at least one CAM or OTC from 19.4% at baseline to 35.5% by 2004, we did not attempt to assess statistically the time trend given the large amount of missing data due to the high attrition level at wave 7. Furthermore, slight variations in medication data collection methods in waves 3 and 7, and a higher proportion of women in wave 7 could partly explain the higher use of CAM and OTC medicines observed at this wave. Although many of the ALSA participants were from non-English speaking backgrounds, fluent English was essential and thus, the findings may not be a true reflection of the use of CAM or OTC in non-English speaking elderly community in a multi-cultural country. Finally, but like most other studies, the data we gathered was self-reported. However, unlike other studies, respondents were asked to show the medicine containers, even so some medicines could have been overlooked. The reasons for use of CAM were categorized from self-reported reasons by consumers and the categories were set up to reflect as closely as possible the words used by the consumers themselves. Then, it is not possible to infer from this data whether use of CAM for "general health" or as "supplement" reflect different beliefs as regards the therapeutic effect of CAM. The question of whether consumers perceived themselves to be "deficient" in a vitamin or believe that supra-therapeutic doses would improve physical or mental performance cannot be determined from the data collected in the ALSA database.
This study focused on examining the types of non-prescription medications used by older Australians and the association between use and various demographic and health-related factors. Further work is needed to examine how self-medication amongst older people contributes to polypharmacy and increases the risk of adverse drug reactions. Use of NSAIDs and aspirin, for example, are associated with an increased risk of adverse drug events, hospitalization and death, with the elderly being particularly vulnerable [31]. Some OTC medicines may also have severe interactions with prescribed medicines [32].
