全民健保資料庫在藥物流行病學研究的應用探討   全文下載

Using Taiwan’s National Health Insurance Research Databases for Pharmacoepidemiology Research

為比較主要健康保險資料庫與台灣全民健保資料庫在進行藥物流行病學研究的優劣，並系統性回顧台灣全民健保資料庫在藥物流行病學研究成果，本研究利用國外現存大型資料庫之特質與台灣全民健保資料庫進行比較，並搜尋已發表且運用台灣全民健保資料庫所進行的藥物流行病學研究，彙整分析。以「台灣全民健康保險研究資料庫」與美國、加拿大及英國等大型資料庫進行比較後，發現「全民健康保險研究資料庫」資料豐富且具全國代表性，足供進行各項藥物流行病學之研究；而利用「全民健康保險研究資料庫」進行的藥物流行病學研究產出也非常豐富，自2002年起共計有11篇發表於國際期刊，研究內容主要以藥品使用趨勢及藥品使用型態為主，惟研究的面向仍可更為多樣化並朝藥物安全的領域進展。總而言之，「全民健康保險研究資料庫」的建置，提供了國內醫藥衛生領域學者從事相關學術研究一個相當優渥的基礎，而運用全民健保資料庫進行研究的產出雖堪稱豐碩，然而就現有發表於國際期刊的藥物流行病學研究，尚存有相當大的研究空間。

In order to (1) present the structure of Taiwan’s National Health Insurance (NHI) research databases, along with the comparison with automated databases in other countries, (2) estimate the strengths and weaknesses of the NHI research databases, and (3) systematically review pharmacoepidemiology studies using the NHI research databases, we compared the characteristics of existing automated databases to reveal the strengths and weaknesses of the NHI research databases. In addition, the Medline was used as a tool to search pharmacoepidemiology studies using Taiwan’s NHI research databases since 1997. The automated NHI research databases are very comparable with large research databases of other countries (US, Canada and UK). As a result, they serve as major resources for up to 11 pharmacoepidemiology studies published since 2002. However, these studies usually focused on the analysis of drug utilization pattern and drug utilization volume. As a result, there is still a huge lack of identification of potential drug safety issues using the NHI research databases. The construction of NHI research databases absolutely provides abundant research resources for scholars not only in medical fields but also in public health-related disciplines. Many studies using the NHI research databases have been published in international journals. Yet, researchers in Taiwan could make even greater progress toward thorough pharmacoepidemiology studies using the NHI research databases.