The use of repeatedly prescribed medicines.

The use of prescribed medicines was investigated by interviewing a random sample of 836 people aged 18 and over, living in England and Wales. Two fifths of respondents had taken some prescribed medicine, excluding an oral contraceptive, in the two weeks before the interview; nearly a quarter of all people were taking some medicine first prescribed one year or more previously. Medicines from two therapeutic classes, psychotropics and diuretics or preparations acting on the cardiovascular system, made up half of all the long-term prescriptions. It seems that the number of people taking long-term prescriptions of diuretics or medicines acting on the cardiovascular system has trebled since 1969, although the general distribution of long-term prescribed medicines, in age and sex groups, has remained much the same as it was in 1969. People classified as working-class were more likely than middle-class people to be taking some medicine on a long-term prescription.