Antiepileptic drug utilization: a Danish prescription database analysis.
OBJECTIVE
The purpose of the study was to use prescription data from a Danish database to analyse and evaluate antiepileptic drug (AED) utilization, and compare with other prevalence studies.


METHODS
A Danish research database covering outpatient prescription data from a population of 471,873 persons was used. Prescription records on all patients prescribed AEDs during 1998 were retrieved. A cohort was extracted from the group of AED users.


RESULTS
We identified 5426 AED users. A total of 3756 of the 5426 AED users were included in our cohort. Of the subjects in the cohort 74% were on monotherapy, 19% used two AEDs and only 7% used three or more AEDs. The eight most frequent regimens were all monotherapy: carbamazepine, oxcarbazepine, phenobarbital, valproic acid, lamotrigine, clonazepam, phenytoin and primidon in that order. The estimated crude 1-year prevalence of AED use was 0.77% for women and 0.83% for men (P<0.001), and it increased with age for both genders.


CONCLUSIONS
The prescription pattern reported here is in accordance with the general guidelines for the treatment of epilepsy in Denmark, except for a surprisingly extensive use of phenobarbital. With specific reservations the figures appear to be reasonable estimates of the prevalence of epilepsy.
Rochat
P
P
Department of Neurology, Odense University Hospital, Denmark. per.rochat@dadlnet.dk
Hallas
J
J
Gaist
D
D
Friis
M L
ML
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000927:Anticonvulsants / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D015331:Cohort Studies; D016208:Databases, Factual; D003718:Denmark / Q000453:epidemiology; D011307:Drug Prescriptions / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D004827:Epilepsy / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000453:epidemiology; D005260:Female; D019983:Guideline Adherence; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010634:Phenobarbital / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D015995:Prevalence
D000927:Anticonvulsants; D010634:Phenobarbital