Authors:
Holly Tibble
1
;
2
;
Aziz Sheikh
1
;
3
;
2
and
Athanasios Tsanas
1
;
4
;
2
Affiliations:
1
Asthma UK Centre for Applied Research, Edinburgh, U.K.
;
2
Usher Institute, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, U.K.
;
3
Health Data Research UK BREATHE Hub for Respiratory Health, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, U.K.
;
4
The Alan Turing Institute, London, U.K.
Keyword(s):
Asthma, Inhaler, Reliever, Salbutamol, Electronic Health Records, Prescriptions.
Abstract:
Asthma is a common chronic lung disease which can be effectively managed for most people through regular use of inhaled controller therapy. Short-acting Beta-2 Agonists (symptom relievers; SABA) may also be prescribed to be used as needed, however over-reliance may indicate poor symptom control. SABA usage can be estimated from refill rate observed in prescribing records. This study was a secondary analysis of a Scottish longitudinal dataset of linked primary and secondary care data. The aims of this study were to estimate the mean inhaled SABA dose per day for people diagnosed with asthma in a large EHR database, and to examine variation by demographic factors such as age, sex, and social deprivation. The prescriptions dataset contained over 40 million prescriptions between 2009 and 2017. 1,987,119 asthma reliever prescription records were identified (5% of all prescriptions), of which 97% were inhaled formulations. The Spearman correlation coefficient between subsequent years of ag
gregated (median) daily estimated SABA from one person-year to the next was 0.67. Higher median daily inhaled SABA amounts were statistically significantly associated (Wilcoxon Rank-Sum test p-value<0.05) with being older, male, living in an area of higher deprivation, and any non-inhaled SABA prescription.
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