LES FACTEURS INFLUENÇANT LE COÛT DE LA PRESCRIPTION MÉDICAMENTEUSE EN ALGÉRIE

Abstract

A policy of controlling health expenditure has been conducted for several years. It has focused much more on the regulation of demand. The supply component has been hidden. In this article, we are interested in one of the elements of the supply, namely the doctor, the first authorizing officer of health expenditure. Our goal is to analyze the cost of the drug prescription and associated factors. To do this, a quantitative study was conducted based on the exploitation of a database of 3 143 prescriptions constituted at the level of a private pharmacy in the city of Batna (Algeria). An econometric analysis has been conducted and revolves around two models : ordinary least squares linear models and discrete choice models, more precisely logit models by maximum likelihood. Our results show that the total cost of prescriptions prescribed by specialists is higher than that of general practitioners. The prescriptions of the chronically ill are more expensive than those of the non-chronic. The proportion of generic drugs is negatively related to the likelihood that the physician consulted will be a specialist. Contextual elements may explain certain prescribing behaviors, such as the patient's freedom of access to the specialist, the prescribing freedom of the physician and the influence of the pharmaceutical industry on prescriptive practice.