Low agreement was found between pharmacy data and physician reported use of hospital-administered antenatal corticosteroids.
OBJECTIVE
To evaluate physicians' recall accuracy on starting year of routine use of antenatal corticosteroids (ACS) to women facing imminent preterm delivery.


METHODS
Starting year of routine treatment with ACS was evaluated by a questionnaire mailed to all 52 Swedish maternity wards. The information was compared with that obtained from a telephone interview with physicians involved in the introduction of routine ACS and with pharmacy data. From pharmacy data, routine use of ACS was defined as >or=20 mg betamethasone or dexamethasone purchased per maternity ward, year, and preterm delivery.


RESULTS
24 hospitals with >or=10 preterm deliveries/year, having started ACS 1976-1997 and with information from questionnaire, interview, and pharmacy data were included in the analyses. There was fair agreement (kappa=0.38, P<0.001) on starting year between questionnaires and telephone interviews with physicians and slight agreement (kappa=0.06, P=0.098) between questionnaires and pharmacy data. Three hospitals had complete agreement on starting year according to questionnaire, telephone interview, and pharmacy data.


CONCLUSIONS
Agreement between information obtained from questionnaires, telephone interviews with physicians, and pharmacy data on use of ACS was low. Physician reported past drug use needs to be validated and pharmacy data can be useful for such purpose.
Cederholm
Maria
M
Section of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Department of Women's and Children's Health, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden. maria.cederholm@kbh.uu.se
Alexandersson
Britta
B
Kieler
Helle
H
D001623:Betamethasone / Q000008:administration & dosage; D003625:Data Collection / Q000379:methods; D036861:Delivery, Obstetric; D003907:Dexamethasone / Q000008:administration & dosage; D017723:Drug Utilization Review / Q000379:methods*; D005260:Female; D005938:Glucocorticoids / Q000008:administration & dosage*; D006760:Hospitalization; D006801:Humans; D011939:Mental Recall; D007752:Obstetric Labor, Premature / Q000188:drug therapy*; D010594:Pharmacies / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D010820:Physicians / Q000523:psychology; D011247:Pregnancy; D011295:Prenatal Care / Q000379:methods*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013548:Sweden
D005938:Glucocorticoids; D003907:Dexamethasone; D001623:Betamethasone