Duplicative prescriptions in Japan: social network analysis using claim databases

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25670315
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Hygiene and public health
• Research Institution: Kyoto University
• Principal Investigator: TAKAHASHI Yoshimitsu 京都大学, 医学(系)研究科(研究院), 講師 (40450598)
• Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha): NAKAYAMA Takeo 京都大学, 医学研究科, 教授 (70217933)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: 重複処方 / レセプトデータ / 社会ネットワーク分析

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Duplicative prescriptions refer to situations in which patients receive medications for the same condition from two or more sources. We sought to conduct descriptive analysis of duplicative prescriptions using social network analysis and to report their prevalence across ages. We analyzed a health insurance claims database including 1.24 million people from December 2012. As a result, the prevalence of duplicative prescription for any drug class was strongly correlated with its frequency of prescription (r=0.90). Among patients aged 0-19, cough and colds drugs showed the highest prevalence of duplicative prescriptions (10.8%). Among people aged 65 and over, antihypertensive drugs had the highest frequency of prescriptions, but the prevalence of duplicative prescriptions was low. Social network analysis revealed clusters of facilities connected via duplicative prescriptions, e.g., psychotropic drugs showed clustering due to a few patients receiving drugs from 10 or more facilities.

Free Research Field

健康情報学