• Component Description
• Eligible Sample
• Interview Setting and Mode of Administration
• Quality Assurance & Quality Control
• Data Processing and Editing
• Analytic Notes
• Codebook
  • SEQN - Respondent sequence number
  • RXD300 - Drugs/over counter taken regularly
  • RXD310 - Product taken
  • RXD320 - # years taking product every day
  • RXD330 - Currently taking product every day
  • RXD331Q - # of pills/doses taken/day
  • RXD331U - Unit of measure (pills/doses)
• Appendix. Hand card used by NHANES interviewers

National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey

2001-2002 Data Documentation, Codebook, and Frequencies

Analgesic Pain Relievers (RXQANA_B)

Data File: RXQANA_B.xpt

First Published: November 2005

Last Revised: NA

Component Description

The Dietary Supplements and Prescription Medication Section (DSQ) of the Sample Person (SP) Questionnaire collects information on

1. dietary supplements,
2. non-prescription antacids,
3. pain relievers/analgesics, and
4. prescription medications.

This documentation describes the Analgesic Subsection which provides personal interview data on lifetime and current chronic use of specific prescription and non-prescription pain medications.

Eligible Sample

The eligible sample consisted of participants 20 years of age and older.

Interview Setting and Mode of Administration

During the household interview, respondents were asked a series of questions about lifetime and current chronic use of specific prescription and non-prescription pain medications. Chronic use was defined as “use nearly every day for as long as a month”. Participants were shown a hand card with a list of pain-relieving products (Appendix) and were asked to identify which products listed on the hand card they had taken nearly every day for as long as a month.

A trained survey interviewer administered the survey participant questionnaire.

Respondents were shown a hand card with a list of prescription and non-prescription pain-relieving products (see Appendix). 

Quality Assurance & Quality Control

Data were routinely examined for discrepancies and erroneous values.

Data Processing and Editing

RXD300 - Pain Relievers drugs/over counter taken regularly

This question was modified slightly over the 2-year survey period. For part of the time period, participants were asked to report pain relievers taken nearly every day for as long as a month, and for another part they were asked about use nearly every day for a month or longer. For the 2001–2002 data release, responses to these questions were combined into a single variable, RXD300. This variable is comparable to the 1999–2000 RXQ300 variable.

RXD310 – Product taken

During part of the 2-year survey period, minor modifications regarding ordering of products and inclusion of generic ingredient names were made to the hand card to improve data collection (not shown). The 2001–2002 RXD310 variable is comparable to the 1999–2000 RXQ310 variable.

RXD320 – Number of years taking product every day

All responses less than 1 year were coded to a value of 666. Some participants reported use for more than 1 year; however, they did not provide the exact number of years of use. Responses for these individuals were coded to a value of 555.

RXD330 – Currently taking product every day

During part of the 2-year survey period, participants aged 20 years and older who reported a pain reliever in RXD300 were asked a single question about whether they were currently using the pain reliever product daily or nearly every day. For another part of the survey period, one question asked participants about their use of pain relievers in the past 30 days, and a follow-up question asked how many days they had used the product in the past 30 days. For purposes of comparability, these two questions were combined into RXD330: Persons who reported the use of a pain reliever in RXD300 and reported using that product for greater than 21 days from the two-part question were identified as a current chronic pain reliever user in RXD330.

Analytic Notes

This file is a drug product level file. Therefore, participants who reported the use of multiple pain relieving products will have a record for each product. Note that these data do not differentiate between prescription and non-prescription analgesics. The analyst should also be aware of the above data editing before analyzing the data.

Codebook and Frequencies