Artur Turek and Aleksander Owczarek 3 Consumption and Consumer Behavior in the European Healthcare Market Abstract: Many variables influence consumption of medication and the behavior of consumers who use medication. The aim of this study was to compare these param- eters in various insurance models. The results have been estimated on the basis of medication sales from pharmaceutical wholesalers to community pharmacies and hospitals. The data were obtained from IMS Healthcare, and the database of IMS MIDAS Market Segmentation was used. It was revealed that consumption and con- sumer behavior depend rather on the type of medications (OTC and Rx) and the setting of consumption. When analyzing the results, the influence of macroeconom- ics and epidemiology was also taken into consideration. Keywords: Consumption, Consumer behavior, Cardiovascular medications, Hospital, Community pharmacy 3.1 Introduction Consumption and consumer behavior in the pharmaceutical market is an interesting topic in health, social, and economic sciences. To generalize, it can be said that everyone takes a medication, anytime and anywhere. It should also be explained that from the pharmaceutical and medical point of view, using the term ‘consumption’ is highly controversial. This is so because the term is clearly associated with the abuse of drugs. It is better to say that medications are rather used or taken. However, the study on medication sales concerns patients as consumers; therefore, use of the term ‘consumption’ is reasonable. Holdford (2007: 109) coined the term ‘healthcare consumers’, which seems to be the most appropriate. Medication consumption and the behavior of healthcare consumers belong to very complex phenomena. Many variables de facto influence the consumption rate of medications and the behavior of healthcare consumers. Data in the literature on medication consumption may be analyzed in terms of sector, i.e., hospital or com- munity pharmacy; kind of medication, i.e., brand medications and generic medica- tions, over-the-counter (OTC) medications and prescription (Rx) medications; coun- try income; illness, i.e., the presence of acute or chronic disease; medication reimbursement; and access to medical care (Cameron et al., 2009: 240; Cameron et al., 2012: 664; Millier et al., 2013: e84088; Turek and Owczarek, 2014: 25). Overall, various determinants influence the behavior of healthcare consumers. The factors found in the literature include, but are not limited to, gender, age, num- Authenticated | a.turek75@gmail.com Download Date | 5/26/16 9:11 PM