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Estimating pediatric inpatient medication use in the United States

Tamar Lasky1, Frank R Ernst, Jay Greenspan

  • 1MIE Resources, Kingston, RI 02892, USA. tlasky@mie-epi.com

Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety
|December 25, 2010
PubMed

Insights

This study shows a large database can estimate national pediatric inpatient medication use. Top drugs include acetaminophen, ibuprofen, and morphine, highlighting common treatments for hospitalized children.

Area of Science:

  • Pediatric Pharmacology
  • Health Services Research
  • Data Analytics

Background:

  • Estimating pediatric inpatient medication use is crucial for understanding healthcare practices.
  • Administrative databases offer a potential resource for such estimations.
  • Previous research has highlighted gaps in national data on pediatric drug utilization.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To assess the feasibility of using a large administrative database for national pediatric inpatient medication use estimates.
  • To identify the most frequently used medications in pediatric hospitalizations.
  • To evaluate the suitability of the Premier Perspective® database for this purpose.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized the Premier Perspective® database for pediatric inpatient data from 2008.
  • Calculated medication prevalence by categorizing patients as receiving or not receiving specific drugs.
  • Validated the database by comparing its characteristics to the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project (HCUP) Kids Inpatient Database (KID) sample for 2006.

Main Results:

  • Identified the top 10 medications administered during pediatric hospitalizations.
  • These included acetaminophen, lidocaine, ampicillin, gentamicin, fentanyl, ibuprofen, morphine, ondansetron, ceftriaxone, and albuterol.
  • Over 500 drug entities were administered, but most were used by a small fraction of patients.

Conclusions:

  • The analyzed administrative database is a viable starting point for national pediatric medication use estimates.
  • Despite not being a probability-based sample, it shows similarity to the HCUP KID.
  • The limited use of individual drugs impacts research on efficacy, safety, off-label use, and comparative effectiveness.
Abstract

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