%0 Journal Article
%T Prescribing patterns and economic costs of proton pump inhibitors in Colombia
%A Machado-Alba
%A Jorge
%A Fern¨˘ndez
%A Alejandra
%A Castrill¨®n
%A Juan Daniel
%A Campo
%A Carlos Felipe
%J Colombia M¨¦dica
%D 2013
%I Universidad del Valle
%X Objective: To determine the prescribing patterns for proton pump inhibitors and to estimate the economic cost of their use in a group of patients affiliated with the Colombian Health System.Methods: This is a descriptive observational study. Data for analysis consisted of prescriptions dispensed between October 1st, 2010 and October 31st, 2010 and were collected from a systematic database of 4.2 million members. Socio-demographic variables were considered along with the defined daily dose, comedication, convenience of the indication for proton pump inhibitor use and costs.Results: In this study, 113,560 prescriptions were dispensed in 89 cities, mostly to women (57.6%) with a mean age of 54.4 ˇŔ 18.7 years; the drugs were omeprazole (n=111,294; 97.81%), esomeprazole (n=1,378; 1.2%), lansoprazole (n=524; 0.4%), pantoprazole and rabeprazole. The indication for 87,349 of the formulas (76.9%) was justified and statistically associated with the use of NSAIDs, antithrombotics, corticosteroids, anti-ulcer, antibiotics and prokinetics. No justification was found for 26,211 (23.1%) of the prescriptions, which were associated with antidiabetics, antihypertensives, hypolipidemics and others (p <0.001). The annual justified cost was estimated to be US$ 1,654,701 and the unjustified cost was estimated to be U.S. $ 2,202,590, as calculated using the minimum reference prices.Discussion: Each month, the Colombian health system is overloaded by unjustified costs that include payments for non-approved indications of proton pump inhibitors and for drugs outside the list of essential medications. This issue is contributing to rising costs of healthcare in Colombia.
%K Health care costs
%K drug costs
%K pharmaceutical services
%K omeprazole
%K esomeprazole
%K lanzoprazole.
%U http://colombiamedica.univalle.edu.co/index.php/comedica/article/view/1028/1785