ArticlePharmacoepidemiology and drug safety2022
Comparison of drug prescribing before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-national European study.
Article in Pharmacoepidemiology and drug safety, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 21 papers.
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Who cites it
21 citing papers in PubMed, 46 citations in OpenAlex.
- Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on antidepressant use in eleven European regions: a comparative time series analysis 2018-2022.Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology · 2026Article
- Trends in Antithrombotic Therapy Initiation Among Patients With Stroke Pre- and Post-COVID-19 in Sweden-An Interrupted Time Series Study.Basic & clinical pharmacology & toxicology · 2026Article
- Similarities in the consumption trajectory of antibacterial drugs in the outpatient care sector in Germany from 1986 to 2022: identification of shared patterns, correlation analysis of prescribed defined daily dose and assessment of underlying influences.Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's archives of pharmacology · 2025Article
- Outpatient utilization trend of bronchodilator and anti-inflammatory agents in the pandemic and beyond.Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's archives of pharmacology · 2025Article
- Prescribing and Dispensing of Oral Isotretinoin and Noncompliance with Recommendations in France before and during the COVID-19 Pandemic.Dermatology and therapy · 2025Article
- Trends in medication use during the COVID-19 pandemic in Quebec, Canada.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Initiation of Anticoagulants During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Sweden: An Interrupted Time Series Analysis.Basic & clinical pharmacology & toxicology · 2025Article
- Trends in global glucose lowering medication consumption: Insights from pharmaceutical sales data (2010-2021).PLOS global public health · 2025Article
- Health disparities and selection bias in obtaining broad consent in a general practitioner setting.Frontiers in medicine · 2025Article
- Evaluating the utilisation patterns of pharmacological therapy in COVID-19 patients: an ecological study in Italy.BMJ public health · 2025Article
- Costs are a major driver of antibacterial drug prescriptions in Germany: market analysis from 1985 to 2022.Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's archives of pharmacology · 2024Article
- Trends and regional differences in antidiabetic medication use: a nationwide retrospective observational study.Diabetology & metabolic syndrome · 2024Article
- Utilization of antidepressants, anxiolytics, and hypnotics during the COVID-19 pandemic.Translational psychiatry · 2024Review
- Treatment seeking and antibiotic use for urinary tract infection symptoms in the time of COVID-19 in Tanzania and Uganda.Journal of global health · 2024Article
- Effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on healthcare utilization among older adults with cardiovascular diseases and multimorbidity in Indonesia: an interrupted time-series analysis.BMC public health · 2024Article
- Influence of practice location on prescribing, diabetes care, and colorectal cancer screening among Czech general practitioners during the COVID-19 pandemic.Epidemiology and health · 2024Article
- Trends in medicine utilisation in public and private healthcare facilities before and during COVID-19: a nationwide analysis of medicine procurement and sales data, 2018-2022.Journal of pharmaceutical policy and practice · 2024Article
- Trends in Prescription Chronic Pain Medication Use before and during the First Wave of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Québec, Canada: An Interrupted Time Series Analysis.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- Prescription trends of antiseizure medications before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.Frontiers in neurology · 2023Article
- Noninterventional studies in the COVID-19 era: methodological considerations for study design and analysis.Journal of clinical epidemiology · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
20 authors at 13 institutions in 8 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeThe COVID-19 pandemic had an impact on health care, with disruption to routine clinical care. Our aim was to describe changes in prescription drugs dispensing in the primary and outpatient sectors during the first year of the pandemic across Europe.
methodsWe used routine administrative data on dispensed medicines in eight European countries (five whole countries, three represented by one region each) from January 2017 to March 2021 to compare the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic with the preceding 3 years.
resultsIn the 10 therapeutic subgroups with the highest dispensed volumes across all countries/regions the relative changes between the COVID-19 period and the year before were mostly of a magnitude similar to changes between previous periods. However, for drugs for obstructive airway diseases the changes in the COVID-19 period were stronger in several countries/regions. In all countries/regions a decrease in dispensed DDDs of antibiotics for systemic use (from -39.4% in Romagna to -14.2% in Scotland) and nasal preparations (from -34.4% in Lithuania to -5.7% in Sweden) was observed. We observed a stockpiling effect in the total market in March 2020 in six countries/regions. In Czechia the observed increase was not significant and in Slovenia volumes increased only after the end of the first lockdown. We found an increase in average therapeutic quantity per pack dispensed, which, however, exceeded 5% only in Slovenia, Germany, and Czechia.
conclusionsThe findings from this first European cross-national comparison show a substantial decrease in dispensed volumes of antibiotics for systemic use in all countries/regions. The results also indicate that the provision of medicines for common chronic conditions was mostly resilient to challenges faced during the pandemic. However, there were notable differences between the countries/regions for some therapeutic areas.
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