Australia's 10 most commonly prescribed medicines revealed by PBS data

Australians continue to use statins more than any other prescription drug, with the two most common cholesterol-lowering medicines being prescribed more than 24 million times in 12 months.

But a significant rise in prescriptions of the antidepressant sertraline (sold under the brand name Zoloft) has seen the drug enter the top 10 list of most commonly prescribed drugs in Australia for the first time.

The list looks broadly similar to previous years, according to NPS MedicineWise medical adviser and Sydney GP Jill Thistlethwaite.

But she said the addition of sertraline — and the continued high ranking of antidepressant escitalopram (sold under brand names Lexapro and Esipram) — was a reflection of the increasingly high volume of antidepressants being prescribed in Australia.

"I would suspect that there is a higher incidence of depression and prescribing in this last year for several reasons, including all the changes that have come from COVID-19 as well as bushfires," Dr Thistlethwaite said.

While cholesterol and blood pressure-lowering drugs dominated the list of medicines most frequently used, the drugs that took the biggest bite of the federal government's pharmaceutical spending were for comparably rarer conditions.

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Source: https://www.abc.net.au/news/health/2020-12-01/australias-most-commonly-prescribed-medicines-statins/12936626 , viewed December 8, 2020.