Asthma and COPD medicines prescription-claims: A time-series analysis of England’s national prescriptions during the COVID-19 pandemic (Jan 2019 to Oct 2020)

Figures & data

Table 1. Descriptive statistics of the total quantity (in millions) of medicines in dosage units from January 2019 to February 2020 (14 months before the pandemic) and March to October 2020 (7 months after pandemic’s onset); Standard Deviation (SD)

	14 months BEFORE Pandemic			8 months AFTER Pandemic’s onset
Quantities in millions/month	Mean	SD	95% CI	Mean	SD	95% CI
Montelukast	2.13	0.50	(1.86,2.39)	2.50	1.04	(1.78,3.21)
Tiotropium bromide	1.83	0.46	(1.59,2.07)	1.89	0.62	(1.47,2.32)
Salbutamol	1.44	0.16	(1.36,1.53)	1.38	0.25	(1.21,1.55)
Aminophylline hydrate	1.32	0.06	(1.29,1.35)	1.29	0.07	(1.24,1.34)
Ipratropium bromide	0.68	0.04	(0.66,0.70)	0.63	0.06	(0.58,0.67)
Theophylline	0.49	0.08	(0.45,0.53)	0.44	0.17	(0.32,0.56)
Beclometasone dipropionate	0.27	0.06	(0.24,0.30)	0.32	0.10	(0.25,0.39)

Figure 1. ARIMA (1,0,0) montelukast, tiotropium bromide, salbutamol, aminophylline hydrate, ipratropium bromide, theophylline, beclometasone dipropionate. The x-axis presents sequential months (one representing January 2019 and 22, representing October 2020). The y-axis represents total quantities of doses reimbursed

Table 2. ARIMA (1,0,0) models

ARIMA(1,0,0) Model Parameters	Parameter Estimate (Est)	Standard Error (SE)	Test-statistic	P-value	Lower confidence interval (LCI)	Upper confidence interval (UCI)
Interact/Slope AFTER
Montelukast-Model_1	−112,098	87,228	−1.285	0.216	−293,499	69,303
Tiotropium bromide-Model_2	2,183	75,938	0.029	0.977	−1,55,739	160,105
Salbutamol-Model_3	−57,832	27,272	−2.121	0.049	−1,14,547	−1,117
Aminophylline hydrate-Model_4	−10,413	7,089	−1.469	0.16	−25,155	4,329
Ipratropium bromide-Model_5	−16,111	4,006	−4.022	0.001	−24,442	−7,780
Theophylline-Model_6	−4,533	15,826	−0.286	0.778	−37,445	28,379
Beclometasone dipropionate-Model_7	−13,725	12,046	−1.139	0.27	−38,776	11,326
Phase/Step-change
Montelukast-Model_1	1,598,111	1,541,604	1.037	0.314	−1,607,830	4,804,052
Tiotropium bromide-Model_2	126,359	1,351,681	0.093	0.927	−2,684,616	2,937,334
Salbutamol-Model_3	1,110,452	478,819	2.319	0.033	114,693	2,106,211
Aminophylline hydrate-Model_4	210,546	125,549	1.677	0.112	−50,547	471,639
Ipratropium bromide-Model_5	297,924	70,886	4.203	0.001	150,508	445,340
Theophylline-Model_6	−24,525	279,109	−0.088	0.931	−604,964	555,914
Beclometasone dipropionate-Model_7	223,273	210,857	1.059	0.304	−215,228	661,774
TimePeriod/Slope BEFORE
Montelukast-Model_1	67,151	31,804	2.111	0.05	1,011	133,291
Tiotropium bromide-Model_2	−9,426	29,243	−0.322	0.751	−70,240	51,388
Salbutamol-Model_3	−10,052	10,643	−0.944	0.358	−32,185	12,081
Aminophylline hydrate-Model_4	−5,515	2,750	−2.006	0.061	−11,234	204
Ipratropium bromide-Model_5	−5,321	1,552	−3.428	0.003	−8,549	−2,093
Theophylline-Model_6	5,149	6,031	0.854	0.405	−7,393	17,691
Beclometasone dipropionate-Model_7	6,994	4,662	1.5	0.152	−2,701	16,689

Data availability

Data are available from https://opendata.nhsbsa.net/dataset/english-prescribing-data-epd