Application of a Common Data Model (CDM) to rank the paediatric user and prescription prevalence of 15 different drug classes in South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and Australia: an observational, descriptive study.

OBJECTIVE: To measure the paediatric user and prescription prevalence in inpatient and ambulatory settings in South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan and Australia by age and gender. A further objective was to list the most commonly used drugs per drug class, per country.

DESIGN AND SETTING: Hospital inpatient and insurance paediatric healthcare data from the following databases were used to conduct this descriptive drug utilisation study: (i) the South Korean Ajou University School of Medicine database; (ii) the Hong Kong Clinical Data Analysis and Reporting System; (iii) the Japan Medical Data Center; (iv) Taiwan's National Health Insurance Research Database and (v) the Australian Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. Country-specific data were transformed into the Observational Medical Outcomes Partnership Common Data Model.

PATIENTS: Children (≤18 years) with at least 1 day of observation in any of the respective databases from January 2009 until December 2013 were included.

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: For each drug class, we assessed the per-protocol overall user and prescription prevalence rates (per 1000 persons) per country and setting.

RESULTS: Our study population comprised 1 574 524 children (52.9% male). The highest proportion of dispensings was recorded in the youngest age category (<2 years) for inpatients (45.1%) with a relatively high user prevalence of analgesics and antibiotics. Adrenergics, antihistamines, mucolytics and corticosteroids were used in 10%-15% of patients. For ambulatory patients, the highest proportion of dispensings was recorded in the middle age category (2-11 years, 67.1%) with antibiotics the most dispensed drug overall.

CONCLUSIONS: Country-specific paediatric drug utilisation patterns were described, ranked and compared between four East Asian countries and Australia. The widespread use of mucolytics in East Asia warrants further investigation.