Prescribing patterns and adherence to medication among South‐Asian, Chinese and white people with Type 2 diabetes mellitus: a population‐based cohort study. Issue 12 (15th September 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Chong, E.; Wang, H.; King‐Shier, K. M.; Quan, H.; Rabi, D. M.; Khan, N. A.
• Is Part Of: Diabetic medicine. Volume 31:Issue 12(2014:Dec.)
• Page Start: 1586
• Page End: 1593
• Publication Date: 2014-09-15
• Subjects: Diabetes -- Periodicals; 616.462
• DOI: 10.1111/dme.12559
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0742-3071

Abstract

<abstract abstract-type="main" id="dme12559-abs-0001"> <title>Abstract</title> <sec id="dme12559-sec-0001" sec-type="section"> <title>Aim</title> <p>To determine the prescribing of and adherence to oral hypoglycaemic agents, insulin, angiotensin‐converting enzyme inhibitors, angiotensin receptor blockers and statin therapy among South‐Asian, Chinese and white people with newly diagnosed diabetes.</p> </sec> <sec id="dme12559-sec-0002" sec-type="section"> <title>Methods</title> <p>The present study was a population‐based cohort study using administrative and pharmacy databases to include all South‐Asian, Chinese and white people aged ≥ 35 years with diabetes living in British Columbia, Canada (1997–2006). Adherence to each class of medication was measured using proportion of days covered over 1 year with optimum adherence defined as ≥ 80%.</p> </sec> <sec id="dme12559-sec-0003" sec-type="section"> <title>Results</title> <p>The study population included 9529 South‐Asian, 14 084 Chinese and 143 630 white people with diabetes. The proportion of people who were prescribed angiotensin‐converting enzyme inhibitors, angiotensin receptor blockers, statin or oral hypoglycaemic agents was ≤ 50% for all groups. South‐Asian and Chinese people had significantly lower adherence for all medications than white people, with the lowest adherence to angiotensin‐converting enzyme inhibitor treatment (South‐Asian people: adjusted odds ratio 0.37, 95% CI 0.34–0.39; <italic>P</italic><0.0001; Chinese people: adjusted odds ratio 0.50, 95% CI 0.47–0.54; <italic>P</italic><0.0001) and statin therapy (South‐Asian people: adjusted odds ratio 0.47, 95% CI 0.41 – 0.53, <italic>P</italic> < 0.0001; Chinese people: adjusted odds ratio 0.72, 95% CI 0.67 – 0.77; <italic>P</italic><0.0001) compared with white people.</p> </sec> <sec id="dme12559-sec-0004" sec-type="section"> <title>Conclusion</title> <p>Adherence to evidence‐based pharmacotherapy was substantially worse among the South‐Asian and Chinese populations. Care providers need to be alerted to the high levels of non‐adherence in these groups and the underlying causes need to be investigated.</p> </sec> </abstract>