ArticlePloS one2012
Temporal patterns of medications dispensed to children and adolescents in a national insured population.
Article in PloS one, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- Ambulatory Care Visits to Pediatricians in Taiwan: A Nationwide Analysis.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2015Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
unlabelledThis study aimed to comprehensively describe prevalence and temporal dispensing patterns for medications prescribed to children and adolescents in the United States. Participants were 1.6 million children (49% female) under 18 years old enrolled in a nation-wide, employer-provided insurance plan. All medication claims from 1999-2006 were reviewed retrospectively. Drugs were assigned to 16 broad therapeutic categories. Effects of trend over time, seasonality, age and gender on overall and within category prevalence were examined.
resultsMean monthly prevalence for dispensed medications was 23.5% (range 19.4-27.5), with highest rates in winter and lowest in July. The age group with the highest prevalence was one-year-old children. On average each month, 17.1% of all children were dispensed a single drug and 6.4% were dispensed two or more. Over time, prevalence for two or more drugs did not change, but the proportion of children dispensed a single drug decreased (slope -.02%, p= .001). Overall, boys had higher monthly rates than girls (average difference 0.9%, p= .002). However, differences by gender were greatest during middle childhood, especially for respiratory and central nervous system agents. Contraceptives accounted for a large proportion of dispensed medication to older teenage girls. Rates for the drugs with the highest prevalence in this study were moderately correlated (average Pearson r.66) with those from a previously published national survey.
conclusionOn average, nearly one quarter of a population of insured children in the United States was dispensed medication each month. This rate decreased somewhat over time, primarily because proportionally fewer children were dispensed a single medication. The rate for two or more drugs dispensed simultaneously remained steady.
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