Use of Viagra across the Nordics: Statistical Analysis

Ever since Pfizer released their revolutionary impotence pill Viagra in the late 1990s, the popularity of “the little blue pill” was on a constant rise. Today, sildenafil-based medicines are the norm for ED treatment worldwide, being used by millions of men globally. After 2013 when Pfizer’s patent expired and generic Viagra products stormed the markets, the demand for branded Viagra diminished in some parts of the world, while at the same time interest in more affordable generic Sildenafil grew considerably.

In other regions, more affordable version did little to damage the popularity of branded Viagra, as the consumers choose familiarity and reliability over lower price. All these different trends tell us an interesting story not only about the ever-changing yet prominent position Viagra has in modern society, but also about men who use it, their habits, considerations and behavioural patterns.

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Prevalence of Viagra use in the Nordics

In this article, we will explore the trends, statistics and overall popularity of Viagra in four biggest Nordic states, namely, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland. We will try to search for patterns and regularities while focusing on the statistical analysis. Our primary source of information and raw data will be national health services of the given states and the statistics they provide on the use and sales of Viagra within the last couple of years among their respective populations.

Thus, the primary goal of our analysis will be to describe the prevalence of Viagra use in the Nordics in detail – from estimated number of users in different time periods, to their changes over time. Additionally, we’ll also take a look at how some specific events affected these trends and patterns, most importantly, the emergence of generic Viagra medicines in 2013.

Nordic countries base data

Since the four states considered all have different populations, the numbers might appear somewhat misleading at first. This is why we first need to gather official data on the population size in order to ensure that we can convert the number of patients to percentages that will give us a more accurate picture of the prevalence of Viagra use across the Nordics.

The basic stats will be presented here in the table form:

Throughout the text, we will continue referencing to this table in order to display the prevalence of Viagra use in percentages. We can start by taking a look at 2017 alone.

So, in 2017, it would seem that it is the Finns that use Viagra the most – which is not surprising since numerous studies have claimed that the prevalence of Viagra use in Finland is almost three times as high as in Sweden which comes in second in our little test research. Finally, Norwegian men are the third, and Danes came in last with just 0.01% less Viagra users compared to Norway. By this time it should be clear how percentages help us get a clearer picture, independent of the population size which might lead to wrong conclusions.

Prevalence of Viagra use in the Nordics prior to 2013

Now we will take a look at the trends in the use of Viagra in the Nordics within the last decade. Starting from 2007, we will take a look at the next ten years, concluding the analysis with the statistics from 2017, already presented above. However, as we will pay special attention to the impact of expiration of Pfizer’s Viagra patent, we will further divide this period in two parts – from 2007 to 2013 and from 2014 to 2017.

However, since here we will be primarily interested in the number of patients using Viagra throughout the years, we need to gather that information from the respective national health agencies. But, Fimea, the Finnish national health authority doesn’t present this historic data to wider public at the moment, but instead relies on DDD (Defined Daily Dose) per 1000 inhabitants per day for its statistics. While we can use this measure to make a rough estimate, errors here can lead to significant discrepancies between the estimates and the reality.

At the same time, Danish national health authority can provide us only with the data from 2013 onward, which will prove to be further problematic for our research, effectively limiting us to Norway and Sweden, as they are the only that countries that have historical data of that kind publically available. However, the situation will change in analysing the next period, since here we will be able to consider three Nordic states, namely, Denmark, Norway and Sweden.

Now we’ll present this same data, only in percentages of the total population.

In the comparison so far, we can see that Norway and Sweden are pretty close when it comes to prevalence of Viagra use. Both experienced minor fluctuation in demand and both reached 0.66% of Viagra users, based on the total population of a country.

Statistics after 2013

Now we’ll take a look at the same data, only from 2013 to 2017. National health authority of Denmark does have information on this period, so it will be included in the analysis too. Let’s take a look.

Now if we convert the same values to percentages, we get a much clearer picture:

Conclusion

As is evident here, the prevalence of Viagra use in the Nordics is, in generally, constantly on the rise. Especially notable peak happened around 2013/2014 when generic version of Viagra first appeared on the European markets. However, while a sudden increase in sales of Viagra across the Nordics can be explained by the appearance of a more affordable version, the long-term trend of constant increase in demand can’t. Here, another factor might be at play – numerous studies have shown that modern sedentary lifestyle, marked by lack of physical activity, bad and unhealthy dietary choices can be linked to impotence through conditions such as diabetes or high cholesterol which, in turn, are known to cause ED problems.

On the other hand, erectile dysfunction is, year after year, less of a taboo topic, so this issue is increasingly discussed, leading to widespread knowledge about potential treatments. We can assume that with this trend, many men feel more open about the possibility to seek out medical help for their impotence problems.