ArticleThe British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners2001
The predictive value of asthma medications to identify individuals with asthma--a study in German general practices.
Article in The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners, 2001. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
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9 citing papers in PubMed, 27 citations in OpenAlex.
- Validation of Patient Identification Algorithms for Atopic Dermatitis Using Healthcare Databases.Dermatology and therapy · 2022Article
- Real-World Adherence and Evidence of Subcutaneous and Sublingual Immunotherapy in Grass and Tree Pollen-Induced Allergic Rhinitis and Asthma.Patient preference and adherence · 2020Article
- Validity of asthma diagnoses and patterns of anti-asthmatic drug use in a cohort of 2053 Danish children.Health science reports · 2018Article
- Immunomodulatory Effects of Ambroxol on Airway Hyperresponsiveness and Inflammation.Immune network · 2016Article
- Electronic health record-based assessment of oral corticosteroid use in a population of primary care patients with asthma: an observational study.Allergy, asthma, and clinical immunology : official journal of the Canadian Society of Allergy and Clinical Immunology · 2013Article
- Prescriptions as a proxy for asthma in children: a good choice?European journal of clinical pharmacology · 2010Article
- Identification of asthmatic children using prescription data and diagnosis.European journal of clinical pharmacology · 2007Article
- Are ICD-10 codes appropriate for performance assessment in asthma and COPD in general practice? Results of a cross sectional observational study.BMC health services research · 2005Article
- Using administrative healthcare data to recruit study subjects: experience with 'camouflaged sampling'.European journal of epidemiology · 2004Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe assessment of prescribing performance by aggregated measures mainly developed from automated databases is often helpful for general practitioners. For asthma treatment, the frequently applied ratio of anti-inflammatory to bronchodilator drugs may, however, be misleading if the specificity of a drug for the treatment of asthma, compared with other diseases, is unknown.
aimTo test the association of specific drugs with the diagnosis of asthma compared with other diagnoses. DESIGN OF STUDY: Cross-sectional study analysing prescription data from a retrospective chart review.
settingEight general practices and one community respiratory practice in a town in Northern Germany.
methodAll patients in the participating practices who received at least one of the 50 asthma drugs most frequently prescribed in Germany within the past 12 weeks were identified. Odds ratios (ORs) with 95% confidence intervals (ClI) were calculated to reveal any association between a specific drug and the diagnosis of asthma. The unit of analysis was the item prescribed.
resultsTopical betamimetics (e.g salbutamol, fenoterol) were the most often prescribed asthma drugs in the general practices (52.1 ) and in the respiratory practice (57.6%). Inhaled steroids accounted for 15% and 13%; systemic steroids accounted for 10% and 13%, respectively. In the general practices, inhaled betamimetics had a moderate marker function for asthma (OR = 2.0; 95% CI = 1.14-3.58). A fixed oral combination drug of clenbuterol plus ambroxol was a marker drug against asthma (OR = 0.35; 95% CI = 0.20-0.61). In the respiratory practice, the diagnosis of asthma was strongly marked by fixed combinations of cromoglycate plus betamimetics (OR = 29.0; 95% CI = 6.86-122.24) and moderately by inhaled betamimetics (OR = 2.6; 95% CI = 1.28-5.14). In contrast, systemic steroids (OR = 0.24; 95% CI 0.10-0.57) and even inhaled steroids (OR = 0.46; 95% ClI= 0.22-0.96) proved to contradict the diagnosis of asthma.
conclusionOnly betamimetics were markers for asthma patients in both types of practices; inhaled steroids, however, were not. Combinations of cromoglycate were markers in the respiratory practice only. Limited specificity of drugs for a disease (e.g asthma) should be taken into account when analysing prescribing data that are not diagnosis linked.
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11761200PMC1314143W2219394369What OpenQuestion holds
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.