Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

To examine the medicine-taking habits of a representative sample of elderly people from the viewpoint of these elderly people and of the main prescribers of these medicines, their general practitioners

Main Topics:

The elderly people's health, their views and experiences of their general practitioners and the prescribed or non-prescribed medicines they take or use; their general views about medicine-taking and pharmacists' assessments of the medicines that they do take; the views and experiences of general practitioners on prescribing for the elderly and their knowledge of particular patients; elderly people's contacts with hospitals and their helpers and supporters; medicines that elderly people hoard. Measurement Scales Nottingham Health Profile; Isaacs and Walkey's Mental Impairment Measurement

Ten parliamentary constituencies were chosen from all those in England with probability proportional to the number of electors. The constituencies were stratified by the proportion of people of pensionable age and a random starting point was taken. In each of these areas a systematic sample of 500 people was selected from the registers published in February 1984. They were sent a short questionnaire and non-responders after one reminder were followed up by an interviewer: 21% were identified as having been born in 1919 or earlier.

Face-to-face interview

(Elderly people); Combination of oral and postal interviews with data extracted from printed directories.