Article Sidebar
Published:
Jan 24, 2019Article Details
The author(s) retain copyright on work published by AOSIS unless specified otherwise.
Licensing and publication rights
Author(s) of work published by AOSIS are required to grant AOSIS the unlimited rights to publish the definitive work in any format, language and medium, for any lawful purpose. AOSIS requires journal authors to publish their work in open access under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.
The authors retain the non-exclusive right to do anything they wish with the published article(s), provided attribution is given to the applicable journal with details of the original publication, as set out in the official citation of the article published in the journal. The retained right specifically includes the right to post the article on the authors’ or their institution’s websites or in institutional repositories.
Previously published work may have been published under a different licence. We advise the community that if they would like to reuse the work to consult the applicable licence at article level.
Note: If you need to comply with your funding body policy, you can apply for the CC BY license after your manuscript is accepted for publication.
Main Article Content
Methylphenidate and atomoxetine prescribing trends in children in the Western Cape Province of South Africa, 2005–2013
Abstract
Background: There is paucity of data on methylphenidate and atomoxetine prescribing patterns in South African children.
Aim: To describe the prescribing trends of these agents in children residing in the Western Cape Province.
Setting: South African private health sector.
Methods: Longitudinal drug utilisation study on medicine claims data from 2005–2013, focussing on the number of patients and prescriptions per patient.
Results: The total number of patients increased by 29.5% from 2005 to 2013. The majority were boys (male:female ratio, 3.5:1), and between the ages of > 6 and ≤12 years in 2005 and >12 and ≤18 years in 2013. More than 75% of patients received methylphenidate or atomoxetine in the City of Cape Town Metropolitan municipality. Prescriptions for methylphenidate and atomoxetine increased by 45.5% overall from 2005 to 2013 (p < 0.001), with that for methylphenidate and atomoxetine increasing by 36.0% and 314.5%, respectively. The average number of annual methylphenidate prescriptions per patient increased from 3.96 ± 2.92 (95% CI, 3.69–4.23) in 2005 to 4.38 ± 2.85 (95% CI, 4.14–4.61) in 2013 (Cohen’s d = 0.14) and for atomoxetine from 2.58 ± 1.86 (95% CI, 1.80–3.37) in 2005 to 4.85 ± 3.66 (95% CI, 3.84–5.86) in 2013 (Cohen’s d = 0.62).
Conclusion: Although the total number of patients and prescribing of methylphenidate and atomoxetine increased significantly from 2005 to 2013, a slight downward trend was observed in the mean number of prescriptions per patient per year from 2008 onwards. These prescribing patterns warrant further research.
