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- Ugochinyere Vivian Ukah, Robert William Platt, and Hedvig Marie Egeland Nordeng.
- Pregnancy and Child Health Research Center, HealthPartners Institute, Minneapolis, Minnesota; Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health, School of Population and Global Health, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Electronic address: Vivian.Ukah@mail.mcgill.ca.
- Am J Prev Med. 2024 Apr 1; 66 (4): 672680672-680.
IntroductionThe COVID-19 pandemic resulted in changes in prescription patterns and fillings for certain medications, but little is known about its impact on the dispensing of cardiovascular drugs.MethodsTrends in dispensing of cardiovascular drugs before and during the pandemic were examined using a population-based cohort in Norway. Using interrupted time series analyses and considering March 1, 2020 as the interruption point, the impact of the pandemic on defined daily dose dispensing of prescribed cardiovascular drugs was estimated in a population of adults with and without pre-existing cardiovascular disease from January 2018 to December 2021. All data were analyzed in 2023.ResultsIn a total of 4,053,957 adults, 690,910 (17.0%) had pre-existing cardiovascular disease. Prior to the pandemic, there was a significant monthly increase in any cardiovascular drug dispensing among those with pre-existing cardiovascular disease (0.30 defined daily dose per month per adult), including prescription of diuretics, calcium channel blockers, and lipid-modifying agents. After controlling for preinterruption trends, there was a slight decrease in level change immediately after the start of the pandemic (2.5 defined daily dose per month per adult) but an increase in the postinterruption trend (0.06 defined daily dose per month per adult) for dispensing of cardiovascular prescriptions, although these changes were not significant.ConclusionsAlthough the COVID-19 pandemic did not appear to result in significant changes in patterns of cardiovascular drug dispensing in Norway, continued access to cardiovascular drugs remains important to prevent further related morbidity.Copyright © 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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