Drug Utilization Pattern of Antipsychotics in Norway: A registry based study from 2004-2014

Abstract

Background: Antipsychotic drugs are primarily used in the treatment of Schizophrenia and bipolar disorder while they are also used in the management of severe depression and anxiety disorder. Despite the prevalent use of the antipsychotic medication in the Scandinavian countries, studies about the prescription pattern are scarce. Objective: To explore the utilization pattern of antipsychotic drugs in Norway from 2004-2014. In addition, the study aims to compare the prescription pattern of Norway with that of Denmark and Sweden. Methodology: A descriptive retrospective multi cross-sectional study was carried out to study the utilization pattern. Data were extracted from the National prescription database of Norway, Denmark and Sweden. Study variables were prevalence, cost per user and DDD/user/day. Microsoft excel 2013 was used to carry out the necessary calculations and results were expressed in percentage and mean values. Since, the study was based on population data, no statistical test was done. Results/Conclusion: Prevalence of antipsychotic use was higher in Norway (21.22), and Denmark (22.56) as compared to Sweden (15.68). In general, women had higher prevalence as compared to men in Norway. Quetiapine, levomepromazine and olanzapine were the most prescribed drugs in Norway and all three countries studied had similar top ten-drug list. In Denmark, nine out of 10 and in Sweden, eight out of 10 drugs were same as that of Norway. Several antipsychotics were found to have low average dose per user per day in Norway, Sweden and Denmark which indicates higher off-label and non-antipsychotic utilization of these medications. Average cost per user of antipsychotics were higher in Denmark (3935 NOK) than in Norway (2896 NOK).