ArticleJournal of pain research2020
Regional Differences in Opioid Prescribing in Germany - Results of an Analysis of Health Insurance Data of 57 Million Adult People.
Article in Journal of pain research, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
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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.
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundRegional variations of opioid use have been reported from many countries. The objective of this study was to examine opioid prescribing patterns in Germany including low- and high-potency opioids (LPO and HPO) focusing on regional differences.
methodsData source was the "Information system for health care data" comprising statutory health insurance funds data for about 70 million Germans of all ages. For 2010, we received aggregated data (by age, sex, federal state and district) of Germans (18+) who had been prescribed at least one opioid including the number of prescribed packages. For each stratum, we further received the number of insured persons. We calculated LPO and HPO prevalences and the mean number of prescribed packages.
resultsAmong 57 million adult Germans (mean age: 50.2 years, 53.8% female), opioid prevalences were 38.7 per 1000 persons for LPOs and 12.8 for HPOs. Prevalences rose with increasing age and were higher in women than in men. On average, LPO users were prescribed fewer packages than HPO users (3.5 vs 7.0). LPO use was highest in the eastern states ranging from 32.9 per 1000 persons (Hamburg) to 47.2 (Saxony-Anhalt). HPOs were most often prescribed in the North and in the East with prevalences varying between 10.6 per 1000 persons (Baden-Württemberg) and 16.9 (Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania). On the district level, prevalences varied by the factors 2.6 and 3.2 for LPOs and HPOs, respectively.
conclusionWe found large regional variations in opioid prescribing which probably cannot only be attributed to differences in patient characteristics.
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