ArticleFamily medicine and community health2020
GP prescribing in Northern Ireland by deprivation index: retrospective analysis.
Article in Family medicine and community health, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 13 citations in OpenAlex.
- Impact of 'street' benzodiazepines on drug-related deaths in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.Drug and alcohol review · 2025Article
- Factors associated with prescription of modern antidiabetics in newly diagnosed patients with type 2 diabetes. a real-world data study in a Spanish region.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2025Article
- The burden of acute eye conditions on different healthcare providers: a retrospective population-based study.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2024Article
- A review of the prescribing culture of anti-depressants across government districts in Northern Ireland.Frontiers in drug safety and regulation · 2023Review
- Examining the association between socio-demographic factors, catheter use and antibiotic prescribing in Northern Ireland primary care: a cross-sectional multilevel analysis.Epidemiology and infection · 2022Article
- Trends, Variation, and Factors Influencing Antibiotic Prescribing: A Longitudinal Study in Primary Care Using a Multilevel Modelling Approach.Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- Drug company payments to General Practices in England: Cross-sectional and social network analysis.PloS one · 2021Article
- Social and Contextual Influences on Antibiotic Prescribing and Antimicrobial Stewardship: A Qualitative Study with Clinical Commissioning Group and General Practice Professionals.Antibiotics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveIn the present study, we sought to explore the relationship between socioeconomic status and prescribing magnitude and cost in primary care throughout Northern Ireland.
designWe performed a retrospective data analysis of general practitioner (GP) prescribing using open-source databases with data collected from May to October 2019 to determine the number of prescriptions and cost of drugs and drug classes by area, ranking these by deprivation index. We used Kendall's tau to quantify the relationship between prescribing and deprivation.
settingWe analysed open-source data collected from 325 GP practices in Northern Ireland during the period from May to October 2019.
participantsWe analysed a total of 2 764 303 prescriptions signed during our study period.
resultsOur study indicates a clear trend of increased overall spending per patient (r=-0.1232, p=0.02) and number of prescriptions per patient (r=-0.3440, p<0.001) in areas of higher deprivation. The mean cost per item was higher in less deprived areas (r=0.3809, p<0.001). Overall, £13.79 more was spent and 3.5 more items were prescribed per patient in the most compared with the least deprived decile, although more expensive items tended to be prescribed in areas with lower socioeconomic deprivation (£11.27 per item vs £9.20 per item). We found a statistically significant correlation of prescribing of key drug classes, such as bronchodilators, antidepressants and drugs used to treat diabetes, among others, with greater deprivation. Prescribing of vaccines and drugs used in the treatment of glaucoma was correlated with lower deprivation.
conclusionWe provide an exploration of the correlation of prescribing with deprivation by analysing all prescriptions signed within a 6-month period in Northern Ireland. Our study broadly agrees with published literature, although a few notable exceptions are highlighted. We provide evidence of discrepancies in medication cost between areas of differing deprivation and suggest possible explanations for these trends. This information will be valuable for future investigation of disease prevalence, as well as targeting of patient education and future funding.
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