ArticleBMJ open2021
Potentially inappropriate medications (PIMs): frequency and extent of GP-related variation in PIMs: a register-based cohort study.
Article in BMJ open, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 9 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
9 citing papers in PubMed.
- Unwarranted variation in potentially inappropriate medication in general practice: a Danish nationwide register-based cohort study.BMJ open · 2026Article
- Prevalence of Potentially Inappropriate Medication Prescriptions in Older Adults.Advanced biomedical research · 2026Article
- Chronic care provision in general practices and association with patient level outcomes: a nationwide cohort study.BMC medicine · 2025Article
- Article
- General practice-related variation in oral anticoagulant treatment of atrial fibrillation: a nationwide cohort study.BJGP open · 2025Article
- Economic, cultural, and social inequalities in potentially inappropriate medication: A nationwide survey- and register-based study in Denmark.PLoS medicine · 2024Article
- Healthcare fragmentation, multimorbidity, potentially inappropriate medication, and mortality: a Danish nationwide cohort study.BMC medicine · 2023Article
- Variation in Psychometric Testing in General Practice - A Nationwide Cohort Study.Clinical epidemiology · 2023Article
- Geographic Variation in Top-10 Prescribed Medicines and Potentially Inappropriate Medication in Portugal: An Ecological Study of 2.2 Million Older Adults.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectivesPotentially inappropriate medications (PIMs) pose an increasing challenge in the ageing population. We aimed to assess the extent of PIMs and the prescriber-related variation in PIM prevalence.
designNationwide register-based cohort study.
settingGeneral practice.
participantsThe 4.2 million adults listed with general practitioner (GP) clinics in Denmark (n=1906) in 2016.
main outcome measuresWe estimated the patients' time with PIMs by using 29 register-operationalised STOPP criteria linking GP clinics and redeemed prescriptions. For each criterion and each GP clinic, we calculated ratios between the observed PIM time and that predicted by multivariate Poisson regressions on the patients. The observed variation was measured as the 90th/10th percentile ratios of these ratios. The extent of expectable random variation was assessed as the 90th/10th percentile ratios in randomly sampled GP populations (ie, the sampled variation). The GP-related excess variation was calculated as the ratio between the observed variation and sampled variation. The linear correlation between the observed/expected ratio for each of the criteria and the observed/expected ratio of total PIM time (for each clinic) was measured by Pearson's rho.
resultsOverall, 294 542 individuals were exposed to 1 44 117 years of PIMs. The two most prevalent PIMs were long-term use (>3 months) of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (51 074 years of PIMs) or benzodiazepines (48 723 years of PIMs). These two criteria showed considerable excess variation of 2.33 and 3.05, respectively; for total PIMs, this figure was 1.65. For more than half of the criteria, we observed a positive correlation between the specific PIM and the sum of remaining PIMs.
conclusionsThis study documents considerable variations in the prescribing practice of GPs for certain PIMs. These findings highlight a need for exploring the causal explanations for such variations, which could be markers of suboptimal GP-prescribing strategies.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
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.