Table 4 Volume of prescribing (expressed as total DDD of all prescriptions) and duration of treatment by drug class in the 6-month follow-up period

From: Incidence and drug treatment of emotional distress after cancer diagnosis: a matched primary care case–control study

 

n

DDD a (median (IQR))

Duration b (median (IQR))

 

Cases

Controls

Cases

Controls

P

Cases

Controls

P

Anxiolytics

496

61

11.2(5.6–21.8)

6.0 (3.1–14.0)

0.017

28.0 (14.0–64.8)

18.7 (9.2–30.3)

0.002

Hypnotics

242

12

28.0 (14.0–84.0)

49.0 (16.8–80.5)

0.777

55.5 (28.0–131.8)

64.5 (28.0–159.3)

0.773

Antidepressants

692

101

30.0 (14.0–86.0)

28.0 (14.0–87.0)

0.695

64.5 (30.0–168.0)

60.0 (28.0–155.5)

0.361

 Tricyclic antidepressants

374

46

14.0 (7.5–35.5)

12.7 (4.7–26.1)

0.230

60.0 (30–145.3)

58.00 (29.5–129.8)

0.905

 Other antidepressants

357

59

56.0 (28.0–168.0)

56.0 (28.0–135.0)

0.487

77.0 (30.0–181.5)

78.0 (28.0–167.0)

0.527

Antipsychotics

94

10

4.7 (2.0–10.5)

15.8 (4.1–80.9)

0.041

28.0 (15.0–56.0)

82.5 (52.0–162.8)

0.003

 Typical antipsychotics

89

5

4.7 (1.9–10.0)

5.3 (2.8–95.3)

0.404

42.0 (28.0–84.0)

111.0 (56.0–211.0)

0.062

 Atypical antipsychotics

6

5

50.0 (3.5–325.5)

42.0 (6.4–149.1)

0.784

69.5 (49.0–215.3)

141.0 (80.5–196.0)

0.314

Anti-manic

14

2

11.6 (5.6–59.5)

56.0 (22.4-.)

0.426

56.0 (42.3–137.5)

97.0 (56.0-.)

0.628

Anti-alcohol

0

1

–

28.0

–

–

98.0

–

  1. Abbreviations: IQR=inter quartile range; DDD=defined daily dose.
  2. aFor each prescription the strength, the dosing and the frequency were used to estimate the daily dose. Estimated daily doses were translated into DDD using the WHO standard doses (WHO, 2010).
  3. bDuration was based on the calculation of the number of days between issue date of first and last prescription, and added with the duration of the last prescription, in days.
  4. Statistically significant results (P<0.05) are indicated in bold.
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