ArticleThe Journal of antimicrobial chemotherapy2024
Effect of methenamine hippurate shortage on antibiotic prescribing for urinary tract infections in Norway-an interrupted time series analysis.
Article in The Journal of antimicrobial chemotherapy, 2024. 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
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Who cites it
2 citing papers in PubMed, 5 citations in OpenAlex.
- Methenamine hippurate for the management and prophylaxis of recurrent urinary tract infections: a scoping review protocol.BMJ open · 2025Article
- Urinary tract infections in women in Catalonia, Spain: a population-based observational cohort study in primary care.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundDespite a lack of conclusive evidence of effect, methenamine hippurate is widely prescribed as preventive treatment for recurrent urinary tract infections (UTIs) in Norway. A national discontinuation of methenamine hippurate treatment due to a 4-month drug shortage in 2019 presented an opportunity to evaluate its preventive effect on UTIs among regular users.
objectiveTo estimate the impact of the methenamine hippurate drug shortage on prescription frequency of UTI antibiotics.
methodsData from The Norwegian Prescription Database was analysed using an interrupted time series design. The time series consisted of 56 time periods of 14 days. The model included two naturally occurring interruptions: (i) the methenamine hippurate drug shortage, and (ii) reintroduction of the drug. The study population were 18 345 women ≥50 years receiving ≥2 prescriptions of methenamine hippurate in the study period before the shortage. Main outcome measure was number of prescriptions of UTI antibiotics per 1000 methenamine hippurate users. Prescription rates of antibiotics for respiratory tract infections were analysed to assess external events affecting antibiotic prescribing patterns.
resultsWe found a significant increase of 2.41 prescriptions per 1000 methenamine hippurate users per 14-day period during the drug shortage (95%CI 1.39, 3.43, P < 0.001), followed by a significant reduction of -2.64 prescriptions after reintroduction (95%CI -3.66, -1.63, P < 0.001).
conclusionsDuring the methenamine hippurate drug shortage, we found a significant increase in prescribing trend for UTI antibiotics followed by a significant decrease in prescribing trend after reintroduction. This change in trend seems to reflect a preventive effect of the drug on recurrent UTIs.
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