Neha Vohra

and 3 more

Aim This study aimed to examine trends in prescribing of anti-dementia drugs in primary care in England between 2009-2019 and to investigate the impact of deprivation, regional demography and disease prevalence on prescribing practices. Methods Analysis of publicly available government data from various sources pertaining to primary care prescribing and demographics was conducted. All primary care prescription data pertaining to anti-dementia drugs and antipsychotic drugs in England between 2009-2019 were extracted and adjusted for inflation and populations changes. Data across English Clinical Commissioning regions and groups were compared to explore the association between prescribing trend, deprivation, regional demography and dementia prevalence. Anti-psychotic drugs prescribing trends were used as reference comparators. Results The number of prescription items for anti-dementia drugs in England increased by approximately three-folds from 24 items/1,000 populations in 2009 to 70.9 items/1,000 populations in 2019; prescribing of antipsychotics increased by 37.6%. In 2019, the least deprived areas had approximately twice the rate of prescribing of anti-dementia drugs compared to the most deprived areas [median (IQR) values of 46.7 (36.6-64.8) vs 91.23 (76.2-95.1) items/1,000 populations respectively]. A weak positive correlation (Pearson’s correlation-coefficient 0.371, p=0.413) was observed between dementia prevalence and prescribing rates. Conclusions The three-fold rise in the number of prescription items for anti-dementia drugs in the study period reflects the policy emphasis on early diagnosis and treatment of dementia. Higher rates of prescribing in the least deprived areas may be reflective of higher life expectancy, better diagnoses and access to treatments. Such differences need to be investigated further.