Hormoonsuppletietherapie in de peri- en postmenopauzale periode: bij meer dan de helft van de vrouwen langer dan een jaar

To describe the use of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and oral contraceptives (OC) among women in the Netherlands in the 45 to 69 years age group during the year 2002.

Design

Descriptive.

Method

Pharmaceutical data on 42,032 women who were in the 45-69 years age group on 31 December 2002 was selected from the InterAction database, a collection of community pharmacy data from the north of the Netherlands. The duration of the therapy was investigated for women who had received at least one HRT or OC prescription in 2002.

Results

Oral contraceptives were used by 11.3 of women aged 50-54 years and 1.8 of women aged 55-59 years. The prevalence of HRT ranged from 6.0 to 11.7 depending on age. Of these users (n = 3885) 28.6 used an oestrogen-progestagen preparation. A treatment period of more than one year was found in 62.3 of women aged 45-49 years and 82.6 of women aged 55-59 years. In particular, preparations containing just oestrogen had been used for a longer period; 43.4 had used these for more than 5 years.

Conclusion

More than half of the women who used HRT had done so for more than one year.