Medicines data definitions
Medicines consumption, the sold volume – number of DDD’s / 1 000 inhabitants / day
Data contains information on all sales of pharmaceutical products in the country. The total sales include prescription and non-prescription drugs in both the primary and hospital sector.
The consumption is measured in DDD (Defined Daily Doses). DDD is theoretical unit of measurement defined as the estimated average daily dose used in the main indication of the preparation in adults and are well suited to study consumption over time and to compare the use between countries. The consumption of pharmaceutical products is reported according to the Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical (ATC) classification system and using DDD as volume (www.whocc.no).
Medicines prevalence, prescription data – number of treated persons/ 1 000 inhabitants
The prescription data is reported from pharmacies and is individual level data. A treated person is a person with at least one prescription during a year. The prevalence of pharmaceutical products is reported according to the Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical (ATC) classification system (www.whocc.no).
Specification of data
Specification of data per country (revised in 2024) can be viewed in the pdf-file below.