Abstract
Aim:
To estimate the temporal trends in primary care prescriptions for adrenaline autoinjector devices (AAI) amongst UK children.
Design:
Retrospective cohort study using the Health Improvement Network (THIN) database
Setting:
Primary care practices that contributed to the THIN database between 1st January 2000 and 31st December 2012.
Participants:
All children aged 0 to 17 years registered within the contributing practices for a minimum of one year contributed to the dataset from the time of their registration until the earliest of the date of 18th birthday, transfer to another surgery, death or last data collection from the practice.
Results:
A total of 1.06 million UK children under the age of 17 were registered between 2000 and 2012, providing 5.1 million person years of follow-up data. Overall, 23,837 children were deemed high risk by their PCPs and were prescribed a total of 98,737 AAI devices. This equates to 4.67 children (95% CI: 4.66, 4.69) and 19.4 (95% CI: 19.2, 19.5) devices per 1000 person years.
There has been a 355% increase in the number of children and 506% increase in the total number of AAI devices prescribed per 1000 person years in the UK. The number of devices issued per high risk child between the years 2000 and 2012 has also increased by 33%.
Conclusions:
There has been a significant increase in the number of children being prescribed AAI devices and the number of devices being prescribed in UK primary care between 2000-2012.
To estimate the temporal trends in primary care prescriptions for adrenaline autoinjector devices (AAI) amongst UK children.
Design:
Retrospective cohort study using the Health Improvement Network (THIN) database
Setting:
Primary care practices that contributed to the THIN database between 1st January 2000 and 31st December 2012.
Participants:
All children aged 0 to 17 years registered within the contributing practices for a minimum of one year contributed to the dataset from the time of their registration until the earliest of the date of 18th birthday, transfer to another surgery, death or last data collection from the practice.
Results:
A total of 1.06 million UK children under the age of 17 were registered between 2000 and 2012, providing 5.1 million person years of follow-up data. Overall, 23,837 children were deemed high risk by their PCPs and were prescribed a total of 98,737 AAI devices. This equates to 4.67 children (95% CI: 4.66, 4.69) and 19.4 (95% CI: 19.2, 19.5) devices per 1000 person years.
There has been a 355% increase in the number of children and 506% increase in the total number of AAI devices prescribed per 1000 person years in the UK. The number of devices issued per high risk child between the years 2000 and 2012 has also increased by 33%.
Conclusions:
There has been a significant increase in the number of children being prescribed AAI devices and the number of devices being prescribed in UK primary care between 2000-2012.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Number of pages | 10 |
| Journal | British Journal of General Practice |
| Early online date | 13 Mar 2017 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | E-pub ahead of print - 13 Mar 2017 |
Keywords
- Allergy
- Adrenaline
- Anaphylaxis
- Prescriptions
- Database
- General Practice
- THIN