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Drug use in children: cohort study in three European countries

Sturkenboom, MCJM; Verhamme, KMC; Nicolosi, A; Murray, ML; Neubert, A; Caudri, D; Picelli, G; ... Wong, ICK; + view all (2008) Drug use in children: cohort study in three European countries. British Medical Journal , 337 , Article a2245. 10.1136/bmj.a2245. Green open access

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Abstract

Objective To provide an overview of drug use in children in three European countries. Design Retrospective cohort study, 2000-5. Setting Primary care research databases in the Netherlands (IPCI), United Kingdom (IMS-DA), and Italy (Pedianet). Participants 675 868 children aged up to 14 (Italy) or 18 (UK and Netherlands). Main outcome measure Prevalence of use per year calculated by drug class (anatomical and therapeutic). Prevalence of “recurrent/chronic” use (three or more prescriptions a year) and “non-recurrent” or “acute” use (less than three prescriptions a year) within each therapeutic class. Descriptions of the top five most commonly used drugs evaluated for off label status within each anatomical class. Results Three levels of drug use could be distinguished in the study population: high (>10/100 children per year), moderate (1-10/100 children per year), and low (<1/100 children per year). For all age categories, anti-infective, dermatological, and respiratory drugs were in the high use group, whereas cardiovascular and antineoplastic drugs were always in the low use group. Emollients, topical steroids, and asthma drugs had the highest prevalence of recurrent use, but relative use of low prevalence drugs was more often recurrent than acute. In the top five highest prevalence drugs topical inhaled and systemic steroids, oral contraceptives, and topical or systemic antifungal drugs were most commonly used off label. Conclusion This overview of outpatient paediatric prescription patterns in a large European population could provide information to prioritise paediatric therapeutic research needs.

Type: Article
Title: Drug use in children: cohort study in three European countries
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1136/bmj.a2245
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.a2245
Language: English
Additional information: This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Keywords: Child health, Epidemiologic studies, General practice / family medicine, Asthma, Chemotherapy, Contraception
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > UCL School of Pharmacy
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > UCL School of Pharmacy > Practice and Policy
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Inst of Clinical Trials and Methodology
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Inst of Clinical Trials and Methodology > MRC Clinical Trials Unit at UCL
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1350396
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