Drug Utilization for Gynaecological Ailments Among Female Privately Insured Persons Aged 12 Years and Older: A Trend Analysis

Background: Despite established pharmacological treatments, menstrual and climacteric complaints remain highly prevalent among women in Germany, suggesting that conventional therapies - hormonal contraceptives and hormone replacement therapy - may not fully meet patients’ needs. However, real-world data on the prescription of herbal medicinal products are scarce. Objective To analyze utilization patterns of synthetic therapies and HMPs in real-world gynecological care. Design Repeated cross-sectional observational study. Methods Prescription data were derived from the drug project of the Scientific Institute of Private Health Insurance (WIP), including all prescriptions from 2019 to 2022 for menstrual or climacteric complaints assigned to ATC codes G03A, G03C, G03F or G02CP. Persons under 12 years of age were excluded. In total, 2.8 million prescriptions were analyzed using resource-oriented methodological approaches and descriptive statistics. Key Results Hormone Preparations (G03) accounted for 91.5% of all prescriptions, while gynecological HMPs (G02) represented only 8.5%. Following an initial decline until 2021, the use of hormones nearly returned to baseline, whereas prescriptions of HMPs showed a continuous downward trend. Among women aged 12-25 years, HCs (G03A) predominated (92.2%), with HMPs (G02CP-01; -02; -05; -07) accounting for 7.8%. The proportion of HMPs increased steadily with age and surpassed synthetic hormonal preparations among women aged over 60 years (59.1% vs. 40.8%). For climacteric ailments, HRT medications (G03C, G03F) were predominant across all age groups (>90%), whereas HMPs (G02CP-03; -04; -53) remained below 10%, peaking among women aged 41-65 years (8.8%).