The prescription of medication is one of the most common actions in general practice. As patients age, the use of medication becomes more complex. NIVEL is developing several different instruments to monitor the quality of pharmaceutical care. This way prescription guideline compliance is monitored, for instance. The next few years new monitoring instruments will be developed, for off-label prescriptions for example. For this research NIVEL uses data from the LINH. Apart from this, LINH data will be used the coming years for longitudinal and other studies of prescriptions to certain patient groups such as children, with a special focus on the family’s influence on the prescription and use of medication.

The consequences that a less proper use of medication could entail are the focus of the research line into the use of medication and participation in traffic, a topic NIVEL has been researching since 2006 in several studies in cooperation with the University of Groningen. An assessment of the publicity campaign among consumers, patients and professionals has been planned for 2010. NIVEL is also involved in doctoral research into the use of medication in traffic at a European level.