[Drug prescriptions for Danish children].
We used a prescription database to identify all reimbursed prescriptions for children aged 0-15 years living in North Jutland County (population 95,134), Denmark, during 1997. We identified 154,189 prescriptions for 48,091 child users. The mean prescription rate was 1621/1000 children/year. Overall, half of the child population purchased > or = 1 prescription. In children younger than three years, 75.3% purchased prescriptions, and 17.5% received > or = 5 prescriptions. Systemic antibiotics, anti-asthmatics, ophthalmologicals, and dermatological corticosteroids accounted for 82% of the prescriptions. One-third of the 0-2 year old children purchased prescriptions for anti-asthmatics, mainly systemic beta 2-agonists, and almost half purchased antibiotics, mainly broad-spectrum penicillins. In the 7-15 year olds, 39.1% redeemed at least one prescription. The study stresses the need for epidemiological studies on the reasons for drug use and evaluation of pharmacological effects in children.
Aarhus Universitet, Center for Epidemiologisk Grundforskning. nt@soci.au.dk
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D000293:Adolescent; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D016208:Databases, Factual; D003718:Denmark; D011307:Drug Prescriptions / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D004363:Drug Utilization; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D012042:Registries