Trends and income related differences in out-of-pocket costs for prescription and over-the-counter medicines in Finland from 1985 to 2006

All patients faced increasing OOP payments for medicines throughout the study period, but the relative growth was largest for the lowest income groups. Our results suggest that savings achieved by increasing the patients' share of costs coincided with steep growth in OOP costs and wider differences between income groups. Cost containment measures targeted at prices, on the other hand, coincided with stabilised OOP costs and decreasing dispersion between the income quintiles. More research is needed to evaluate whether differences in OOP costs reflect differences in patterns of use.