Abuse of prescription medicines in southwestern France

BACKGROUND: Few quantitative data are available concerning abuse of medicine in the general population, although dependence on prescription medicines involves a significant proportion of the population, Falsified prescription forms can be used as an indicator of abuse. METHODS: Community pharmacists in a representative network were asked to report any falsified prescription form presented over a 1-year period. Sales data were used to express results as abuse rate and abuse rate ratio. RESULTS: Two-thirds of the 130 pharmacies in the network reported at least 1 falsified prescription. The reported incidence of falsified prescriptions was 2.3 per 10 000 inhabitants. A total of 392 falsified prescription forms was collected. The abuse rate ratios were 171 (95% CI 140 to 210) for dextroamphetamine-phenobarbital in combination, 168 (95% CI 131 to 216) for fenozolone, 67 (95% CI 53 to 84) for buprenorphine, and 40.5 (95% CI 33 to 50) for clobenzorex. CONCLUSIONS: These results show the efficiency of a method for detecting falsified prescriptions forms using community pharmacists. The abuse of medicines already known for their addictive potential can be estimated and alerts can also be detected.