| Title |
Association of Over-The-Counter Pharmaceutical Sales with Influenza-Like-Illnesses to Patient Volume in an Urgent Care Setting
|
|---|---|
| Published in |
PLOS ONE, March 2013
|
| DOI | 10.1371/journal.pone.0059273 |
| Pubmed ID | |
| Authors |
Timothy Y. Liu, Jason L. Sanders, Fu-Chiang Tsui, Jeremy U. Espino, Virginia M. Dato, Joe Suyama |
| Abstract |
We studied the association between OTC pharmaceutical sales and volume of patients with influenza-like-illnesses (ILI) at an urgent care center over one year. OTC pharmaceutical sales explain 36% of the variance in the patient volume, and each standard deviation increase is associated with 4.7 more patient visits to the urgent care center (p<0.0001). Cross-correlation function analysis demonstrated that OTC pharmaceutical sales are significantly associated with patient volume during non-flu season (p<0.0001), but only the sales of cough and cold (p<0.0001) and thermometer (p<0.0001) categories were significant during flu season with a lag of two and one days, respectively. Our study is the first study to demonstrate and measure the relationship between OTC pharmaceutical sales and urgent care center patient volume, and presents strong evidence that OTC sales predict urgent care center patient volume year round. |
X Demographics
The data shown below were collected from the profile of 1 X user who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Unknown | 1 | 100% |
Demographic breakdown
| Type | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Scientists | 1 | 100% |
Mendeley readers
The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 33 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Unknown | 33 | 100% |
Demographic breakdown
| Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Student > Ph. D. Student | 7 | 21% |
| Researcher | 7 | 21% |
| Student > Master | 5 | 15% |
| Student > Bachelor | 3 | 9% |
| Professor > Associate Professor | 3 | 9% |
| Other | 6 | 18% |
| Unknown | 2 | 6% |
| Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Medicine and Dentistry | 6 | 18% |
| Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutical Science | 3 | 9% |
| Social Sciences | 3 | 9% |
| Agricultural and Biological Sciences | 3 | 9% |
| Computer Science | 2 | 6% |
| Other | 9 | 27% |
| Unknown | 7 | 21% |