Abstract
BackgroundThe prevalence of asthma in Sweden is about 9.5% and the incidence is highest in the toddler years. The evidence of the efficacy and safety of drug treatment for children and recommendations are based on individual studies and expert opinions. The drug treatment is individually adapted, with an aim to enable children to achieve full control over the diseaseAimThe aim of this report is to study regional drug recommendations for children with asthma and allergy in two Swedish regions and to assess if there are age and sex differences in drug utilization.MethodsA cross sectional study was conducted using data on dispensed prescription obtained from the National Board of Health and Welfare's prescribed drug register. This study included children divided into four different age groups, 0-4 years, 5-9 years, 10-14 years and 15-19 years who live in Sweden during the year 2021. Period prevalence was assessed in number of children dispensed the different drugs/1000 inhabitants. Drug recommendations were obtained from regional Stockholm and regional Östergötland’s websites, a comparison was also made between these two regions recommendations for asthma drugs.ResultsWe are seeing a marked increase in the number of medicines dispensed for boys, regardless of age. With increasing age, however, we see fewer patients for both sees. In 2021, there were more than half a million dispensations of asthma drugs for children aged 0-19 years. Among all ATC codes, we have a dominant drug prescribed – 45% of the dispensed drugs are a beta-2 stimulator, 36% Glucocorticoids, 9.5% Leukotriene receptor antagonist and 8.6% are a combination treatment. There are differences in the recommendations regarding the age ranges for when medicines should be recommended.ConclusionThe importance of follow-up and review of asthma treatment has proven to be significant as girls in 2022 of older age have an increased patient / 1000 inhabitants while boys in the same age group respond better to treatment of their asthma drugs.