Prescription of potentially addictive medications after a multilevel community intervention in general practice

Figures & data

Table 1. Key information about what the study sample covers.

	2017	2018	2019	2020
Number of physicians present (n)	20	23	24	25
Population in Molde (n)	31,870	31,895	31,976	31,967
Total observation time (patient-years)	21,394	24,772	27,046	25,705
Percentage of population covered by study sample (%)	67.1	77.7	84.6	80.4
Average number of patients in regular patient population (mean (SD))	1147 (342)	1151 (290)	1143 (278)	1086 (293)

Figure 1. Number of patients per 1000 patients per year receiving from ≤10 to >90 DDDs of opioids, benzodiazepines, and z-hypnotics.

Table 2. Estimated average number of DDDs per patient per year and estimated changes between 2017 and years 2018 to 2020 for potentially addictive medications (PAMs) in Molde.

	Study sample in Molde				Norway
Year	DDD per patient	Change	95% CI		DDD per person
All PAMs
2017	16.7	Reference			22.0
2018	12.3	−4.4	−5.6	−3.3	21.3
2019	11.7	−5.0	−6.2	−3.9	20.9
2020	12.3	−4.5	−5.6	−3.3	20.8
Opioids
2017	4.1	Reference			6.1
2018	3.2	−0.9	−1.4	−0.3	6.0
2019	3.3	−0.9	−1.4	−0.3	6.0
2020	3.5	−0.7	−1.2	−0.1	5.9
Benzodiazepines
2017	3.0	Reference			4.9
2018	2.2	−0.8	−1.1	−0.5	4.6
2019	2.1	−1.0	−1.3	−0.7	4.5
2020	2.2	−0.8	−1.2	−0.5	4.3
Z-hypnotics
2017	9.6	Reference			11.0
2018	6.8	−2.7	−3.5	−2.0	10.7
2019	6.4	−3.2	−3.9	−2.5	10.5
2020	6.6	−2.9	−3.7	−2.2	10.6

Notes: For comparison, we also report DDDs prescribed per person in all of Norway. Results for Molde are based on a linear mixed model, while results for Norway are calculated using publicly available data on prescriptions (www.reseptregisteret.no) and population size (www.ssb.no/folketall) without any adjustments.

Figure 2. Average number of DDDs prescribed per patient per year according to sex and age group.