Temporal patterns of medications dispensed to children and adolescents in a national insured population

Ambulatory Care Visits to Pediatricians in Taiwan: A Nationwide Analysis

Pediatricians play a key role in the healthy development of children. Nevertheless, the practice patterns of pediatricians have seldom been investigated. The current study analyzed the nationwide profiles of ambulatory visits to pediatricians in Taiwan, using the National Health Insurance Research Database. From a dataset that was randomly sampled one out of every 500 records among a total of 309,880,000 visits in 2012 in the country, 9.8% (n = 60,717) of the visits were found paid to pediatricians. Children and adolescents accounted for only 69.3% of the visits to pediatricians. Male pediatricians provided 80.5% of the services and the main workforces were those aged 40-49 years. The most frequent diagnoses were respiratory tract diseases (64.7%) and anti-histamine agents were prescribed in 48.8% of the visits to pediatricians. Our detailed results could contribute to evidence-based discussions on health policymaking.

Seasonal changes in prescribing of long-acting beta-2-agonists-containing drugs

BACKGROUND

For patients with asthma, COPD, or asthma-COPD overlap syndrome (ACOS), inter-country comparisons of seasonal changes in drug prescriptions are scarce or missing. Hence, we aimed to compare seasonal changes in prescription rates of long-acting beta-2-agonist (LABA) in four European countries.

METHODS

A common study protocol was applied to six health care databases (Germany, Spain, the Netherlands (2), and the UK (2)) to calculate age- and sex-standardized point prevalence rates (PPRs) of LABA-containing prescriptions by the 1st of March, June, September, and December of each year during the study period 2002-2009. Seasonal variation of PPRs was quantified using seasonal indexes (SIs; based on the ratio-to-moving-average-method) and SIs averaged over the study period (aSI) stratified by sex, age, and indication (asthma, COPD, or ACOS).

RESULTS

There was a moderate seasonal change in LABA-containing prescriptions which was more pronounced in asthma or COPD patients compared to ACOS patients. For asthma and ACOS patients, highest seasonal variation was found for patients living in Spain (aSI: 87.3-110.7, aSI: 93.2-103.1) whereas for COPD highest seasonal variation was revealed for the NPCRD database (the Netherlands) (aSI: 92.2-105.6). Regarding age and sex, highest seasonal variation was found in Spanish boys under 10 years of age having a diagnosis of asthma.

CONCLUSIONS

By applying a common analysis in six databases, we could observe moderate overall seasonal changes in LABA-containing prescription rates in patients with asthma, COPD, or ACOS.

Analysis of pediatric clinical drug trials for neuropsychiatric conditions

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE

Neuropsychiatric conditions represent a large and increasing disease burden in children. A number of drugs are available for the treatment of these conditions, but most drugs have not been adequately tested in children, and off-label drug use remains widespread. We sought to define and quantify recent and ongoing clinical research on the use of neuropsychiatric drugs in children.

METHODS

Drug trials registered in ClinicalTrials.gov between 2006 and 2011 and studying neuropsychiatric conditions were selected and classified based on the drug's Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval status in children. We measured the proportion of trials seeking to expand the use of a drug to pediatric patients and the proportion of available drugs studied in children.

RESULTS

Only 10% of neuropsychiatric trials focused on children. Of 303 drugs studied in both pediatric and adult populations, 90% lacked FDA approval in children and 97% were not approved in children for the indication studied. However, only 19% of all neuropsychiatric drugs were under study in pediatric populations, with as few as 8% of either antidepressant or antipsychotic drugs. Overall, 76% of pediatric drug trials examined a drug previously unapproved in children and 26% explored the use of a drug for a new indication.

CONCLUSIONS

Despite the rising prevalence of neuropsychiatric disease and the paucity of FDA-approved pediatric drugs, only a small proportion of trials focus on pediatric populations and these trials cover only a fraction of available drugs. This deficiency is most pronounced for depression and schizophrenia.