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Identification of asthmatic children using prescription data and diagnosis

  • Pharmacoepidemiology and Prescription
  • Published:
European Journal of Clinical Pharmacology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Objective

The aim of the study was to develop and validate a method for identifying asthmatic children between 6 and 14 years of age based on prescription data on anti-asthmatic drugs and diagnostic data.

Methods

A register-based study of 125,907 Danish children aged 6–14 years identified 9695 children who had redeemed at least one anti-asthmatic drug prescription in 2002. The asthma diagnosis in these children was validated by discharge information and by a questionnaire completed by general practitioners. Models based on combinations of different types of drugs were tested to find the best model that would include as many children as possible with a validated diagnosis and exclude as many false positives as possible. Different time windows were tested in terms of detecting the children and the observation period of refilling prescriptions.

Results

The highest specificity of 0.86 [95% confidence interval (95% CI): 0.84–0.87] together with a sensitivity of 0.63 (95% CI: 0.62–0.65) were found in the model that included children who had redeemed a prescription for any anti-asthmatic drug – with the exception of prescriptions for beta2-agonists as liquid, one prescription only of inhaled beta2-agonist or an inhaled steroid – during a 12-month period. Lengthening the observation time by 6 months did not significantly improve the specificity (0.87; 95% CI: 0.85–0.88), but it did result in a statistically significantly lower sensitivity (0.59; 95% CI: 0.58–0.60).

Conclusion

Register-based data on redeemed prescriptions can be utilised to identify asthmatic school children. This method will be useful in health services research and in the proactive care of asthmatic children.

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Abbreviations

ATC:

Anatomic Therapeutic Chemical system

CRN:

Civil Registry Number

DDD:

Defined Daily Dose

GP:

General Practitioner

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Danish Paediatric Asthma Centre, Aarhus University Hospital – Skejby Sygehus, Aarhus N, Denmark

    Grete Moth & PO Schiøtz

  2. The Research Unit for General Practice, University of Aarhus, Aarhus C, Denmark

    Peter Vedsted

  3. The Perinatal Epidemiologic Research Unit, Aarhus University Hospital – Skejby Sygehus, 8200, Aarhus N, Denmark

    Grete Moth

Authors
  1. Grete Moth
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  2. Peter Vedsted
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  3. PO Schiøtz
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Grete Moth.

Appendices

Appendix 1

Table 4 List of anti-asthmatic drugs categories and the ATC-codes of each category
Full size table

Appendix 2

Table 5 List of asthma diagnoses (ICD10) used for collecting information on discharge diagnoses from The National Patient Registry [27]
Full size table

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Moth, G., Vedsted, P. & Schiøtz, P. Identification of asthmatic children using prescription data and diagnosis. Eur J Clin Pharmacol 63, 605–611 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00228-007-0286-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00228-007-0286-4

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