Prescribing practice of pregabalin/gabapentin in pain therapy : an evaluation of German claim data
- Objectives: To analyse the prevalence and incidence of pregabalin and gabapentin (P/G) prescriptions, typical therapeutic uses of P/G with special attention to pain-related diagnoses and discontinuation rates. Design: Secondary data analysis. Setting: Primary and secondary care in Germany. Participants: Four million patients in the years 2009–2015 (anonymous health insurance data). Intervention: None. Primary and secondary outcome measures: P/G prescribing rates, P/G prescribing rates associated with pain therapy, analysis of pain-related diagnoses leading to new P/G prescriptions and the discontinuation rate of P/G. Results: In 2015, 1.6% of insured persons received P/G prescriptions. Among the patients with pain first treated with P/G, as few as 25.7% were diagnosed with a typical neuropathic pain disorder. The remaining 74.3% had either not received a diagnosis of neuropathic pain or showed a neuropathic component that was pathophysiologically conceivable but did not support the prescription of P/G. High discontinuation rates were observed (85%). Among the patients who had discontinued the drug, 61.1% did not receive follow-up prescriptions within 2 years. Conclusion: The results show that P/G is widely prescribed in cases of chronic pain irrespective of neuropathic pain diagnoses. The high discontinuation rate indicates a lack of therapeutic benefits and/or the occurrence of adverse effects.
Author: | Annika Viniol, Tina Ploner, Lennart Hickstein, Jörg HaasenritterORCiDGND, Karl Martin KleinORCiD, Jochen Walker, Norbert Donner-Banzhoff, Annette Becker |
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URN: | urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-500259 |
DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2018-021535 |
ISSN: | 2044-6055 |
Pubmed Id: | https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30928920 |
Parent Title (English): | BMJ open |
Publisher: | BMJ Publishing Group |
Place of publication: | London |
Document Type: | Article |
Language: | English |
Year of Completion: | 2019 |
Date of first Publication: | 2019/03/30 |
Publishing Institution: | Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg |
Release Date: | 2019/04/18 |
Tag: | diabetic neuropathy; pain management; primary care |
Volume: | 9 |
Issue: | 3, e021535 |
Page Number: | 6 |
First Page: | 1 |
Last Page: | 6 |
Note: | This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/. |
HeBIS-PPN: | 45068976X |
Institutes: | Medizin / Medizin |
Dewey Decimal Classification: | 6 Technik, Medizin, angewandte Wissenschaften / 61 Medizin und Gesundheit / 610 Medizin und Gesundheit |
Sammlungen: | Universitätspublikationen |
Licence (English): | Creative Commons - Namensnennung-Nicht kommerziell 4.0 |