[Data sources on drug utilization in Croatia and Europe].

The costs for drugs account for a significant proportion of total health care cost in every country. This is especially pronounced in welfare states and less developed countries. Therefore, each government has to take protective measures against uncontrolled rise in drug expenses and tend to the ideal, rational drug utilization. One of these measures is systematic monitoring of drug utilization. The data on drug utilization thus obtained provide a basis for appropriate interventional measures and their evaluation. In Croatia, no systematic measures in the field of drug utilization have yet been employed. In this brief survey, the methodology of drug utilization monitoring is critically reviewed, emphasizing the need of implementing the World Health Organization (WHO) Anatomical-Therapeutic-Chemical (ATC) system of drug classification and drug utilization monitoring by use of WHO Defined Daily Doses (DDD). The use of ATC/DDD system and other methods of drug utilization monitoring in Scandinavian countries is then presented. The third section deals with the current situation concerning data sources on drug utilization in Croatia. In Croatia, the ATC/DDD system has to date been only used by researchers and Zagreb Institute of Public Health in the work on the project entitled Drug Utilization in the City of Zagreb, launched in 2002.