Hypnotics use in children 0-18 months: moderate agreement between mother-reported survey data and prescription
Ingvild Holdø1, Jørgen G Bramness2, Marte Handal3
1Norwegian Centre of Addiction Research (SERAF), University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway.
Insights
Mother-reported hypnotic use in young children showed less than 50% agreement with prescription records. This highlights data collection challenges in pediatric pharmacoepidemiology research.
Area of Science:
- Pharmacoepidemiology
- Pediatric drug utilization studies
Background:
- Assessing hypnotic drug use in children (0-18 months) presents challenges as neither questionnaires nor prescription records are definitive.
- This study compares the agreement between mother-reported data and prescription records for hypnotics versus antiepileptic drugs.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the agreement between mother-reported and prescription record data for hypnotic drug use in young children.
- To compare this agreement with that of antiepileptic drugs.
- To explore sociodemographic factors influencing data discrepancies.
Main Methods:
- Utilized Norwegian prescription database and mother and child cohort data (2005-2009) for 47,413 children.
- Calculated agreement using Cohens Kappa and analyzed discrepancies with multinomial logistic regression.
Main Results:
- Agreement for hypnotics was under 50%, while for antiepileptic drugs it was 92.9%.
- Reporting sensitivity for hypnotics improved with the number of filled prescriptions.
- Paternal education and maternal work status were linked to data discrepancies.
Conclusions:
- Moderate agreement exists between reported and dispensed hypnotic drugs in infants and toddlers.
- Sociodemographic factors have a limited role in explaining the observed discrepancies in drug use data.
Background:
Different methods in pharmacoepidemiology can be used to study hypnotic use in children. But neither questionnaire-based data nor prescription records can be considered a "gold standard". This study aimed to investigate the agreement between mother-reported questionnaire-based data and prescription record data for hypnotic drugs in children aged 0-18 months. The agreement was compared to the agreement for a group of antiepileptic drugs.
Methods:
Prescription record data were collected from the Norwegian prescription database for 47,413 children also surveyed in the Norwegian mother and child cohort between 2005 and 2009. Agreement between in the two data sources was calculated using Cohens Kappa. Multinomial logistic regression was used to calculate the effect of sociodemographic variables on discrepancies in data sources.
Results:
The agreement between mother-reported and dispensed hypnotics was less than 50% for all hypnotics. Sensitivity of reporting increased with number of filled prescriptions. The agreement of antiepileptic drugs was 92.9% in the same population. Of several sociodemographic factors only paternal educational level and maternal work situation was significantly related to agreement between prescription record and survey data.
Conclusion:
There was a moderate agreement between reported use and dispensed hypnotic drugs for infants and toddlers. Results indicate that sociodemographic factors play only a minor role in explaining discrepancy.
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