Primary care cohort study in the sequence of diagnosing chronic respiratory diseases and prescribing inhaled corticosteroids.

Primary care cohort study in the sequence of diagnosing chronic respiratory diseases and prescribing inhaled corticosteroids. NPJ Prim Care Respir Med. 2018 Oct 09;28(1):37 Authors: Geraets I, Schermer T, Kocks JWH, Akkermans R, Bischoff E, van den Bemt L Abstract To prevent unnecessary use of inhaled corticosteroids (ICS), ICS treatment should only be started when the diagnostic process of asthma and COPD is completed. Little is known about the chronological order between these diagnoses and the start of ICS. We performed a retrospective cohort study, based on electronic medical records of 178 Dutch general practices, to explore the temporal relations between starting continuous use of ICS and receiving a diagnosis of asthma and/or COPD. The database included information of patients who were registered with a diagnosis of asthma and/or COPD in one of the practices during January 1, 2012 and December 31, 2013. Two or more successive prescriptions of ICS within 6 months were considered as continuous ICS treatment. The chronological order of events based on available dates were analysed using descriptive analyses. For 8507 patients with asthma, 4024 patients with COPD, and 801 patients with asthma-COPD overlap (ACO), the order of events could be analysed. In total, 1857 (14.4%) patients started ICS prior to their diagnosis, 11.5, 20.8, and 10.0% of patients with asthma, COPD, and ACO, respectively. In 53.4% of the patients, the first p...
Source: Primary Care - Category: Primary Care Authors: Tags: NPJ Prim Care Respir Med Source Type: research