Dataset Information

Regional changes in psychotropic use among Finnish persons with newly diagnosed Alzheimer's disease in 2005-2011.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

To describe and compare temporal changes in prevalence and incidence of psychotropic use (antipsychotics, antidepressants and benzodiazepines and related drugs; BZDRs) in persons with newly diagnosed Alzheimer's disease (AD) between university hospital districts of Finland during 2005-2011.

Methods

The MEDALZ study includes all community-dwellers of Finland who received a clinically verified AD diagnosis in 2005-2011 (N = 70,718). Prevalent and incident use of psychotropics among those who had received AD diagnosis less than one year ago were compared in 2005-2011.

Results

Regional differences in psychotropic use between university hospital districts were more evident in 2005 than 2011 for prevalent use of any psychotropic, antipsychotic and BZDRs and incident use of any psychotropic and antipsychotics. Regional differences in prevalent antidepressant use and incident BZDR use remained similar during the follow-up, while differences in incident antidepressant use increased during the follow-up. The prevalence of any psychotropic use in 2005 varied between 44.7-50.7% and between 45.0-47.9% in 2011. Incidence of any psychotropic use in 2005 was between 8.6-12.1% and 6.2-8.2% in 2011. In 2005, the distribution of incident psychotropic use followed a large scale spatial variation that, however, did not correspond to university hospital districts. During the study period from 2005 to 2011 the cyclic spatial variation disappeared. No sign of adjacent hospital districts being more or less closely related to each other compared to hospital districts in general was detected.

Conclusions

Except for antidepressants, regional differences in psychotropic use have mainly diminished between 2005 and 2011. Our findings highlight the importance of acknowledging regional differences in a country with relatively homogeneous healthcare system and conducting future studies assessing the reasons behind these differences.

SUBMITTER: Tolppanen AM

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5344395 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Regional changes in psychotropic use among Finnish persons with newly diagnosed Alzheimer's disease in 2005-2011.

Tolppanen Anna-Maija AM Voutilainen Ari A Taipale Heidi H Tanskanen Antti A Lavikainen Piia P Koponen Marjaana M Tiihonen Jari J Hartikainen Sirpa S

PloS one 20170309 3

<h4>Objectives</h4>To describe and compare temporal changes in prevalence and incidence of psychotropic use (antipsychotics, antidepressants and benzodiazepines and related drugs; BZDRs) in persons with newly diagnosed Alzheimer's disease (AD) between university hospital districts of Finland during 2005-2011.<h4>Methods</h4>The MEDALZ study includes all community-dwellers of Finland who received a clinically verified AD diagnosis in 2005-2011 (N = 70,718). Prevalent and incident use of psychotro ...[more]

PMID: 28278245

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Dataset Information

Regional changes in psychotropic use among Finnish persons with newly diagnosed Alzheimer's disease in 2005-2011.

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusions

Publications

Regional changes in psychotropic use among Finnish persons with newly diagnosed Alzheimer's disease in 2005-2011.

Similar Datasets

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