title: Dosage Form Data Used for Estimating Pediatric Antibiotic Use.
abstract: We aimed to report a simple estimation method to enable quantification of pediatric antibiotic exposure in large aggregated datasets. Secondly, we aimed to quantify and benchmark Hungarian pediatric antibiotic use. First we intended to examine whether a correlation existed between dosage form data and the patient's age. Therefore, issued prescriptions were analyzed in pharmacies. As a correlation was found between the share of liquid oral antibacterial products and the rate of pediatric antibiotic prescriptions (R=0.884; p<0.001), we extrapolated this finding to a large aggregated dataset and estimated that 34.6% of prescriptions were issued for pediatric cases (95% confidence interval: 19.7-60.0). Taking into account the demography of the population, children were exposed to antibiotics three times more often than adults with a corresponding annual prescription rate of 2.6. We demonstrated that simple drug-related data can be linked to a patient-related measure as we found strong associations between dosage form data and patients' age. Based on this association, massive pediatric antibiotic exposure was found. Due to the general availability of dosage form data and the ease of the estimation method, the reported concept can be used to quantify pediatric antibiotic use in large aggregated datasets or when age stratification is absent.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Szeged, Szikra utca 8., H-6725 Szeged, Hungary.
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Matuz
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Szeged, Szikra utca 8., H-6725 Szeged, Hungary.
authors.forename: Ria
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Benko
authors.affiliation: Centre for Research and Innovation in Care (CRIC), Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Antwerp, CDE R3.29, Universiteitsplein 1, B-2610 Wilrijk, Belgium.
authors.forename: Monique
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Elseviers
authors.affiliation: First Internal Medicine, Infectiology Unit, Faculty of Medicine, University of Szeged, Kálvária sgt 57, H-6724 Szeged, Hungary.
authors.forename: Edit
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Hajdu
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Szeged, Szikra utca 8., H-6725 Szeged, Hungary.
authors.forename: Peter
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Doro
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Szeged, Szikra utca 8., H-6725 Szeged, Hungary.
authors.forename: Reka
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Viola
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Pharmacy, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Szeged, Szikra utca 8., H-6725 Szeged, Hungary.
authors.forename: Gyongyver
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Soos
keywords: Drug utilization research; Liquid oral formulations; New estimation method; Pediatric antibiotic use; Pharmacoepidemiology
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