I do some work around suicide prevention.
Having access to this data means I can ask why so much co-proxamol (a medication that has no evidence of effectiveness, but which is also very dangerous) is being prescribed in Gloucestershire.
In any case, it would be really interesting to see how legislation, lobbying, and current events (relative) may have affected this data.
Maybe the patent expiring. (WP talks about a US patent and this is the UK, so it's a guess)
It's mentioned here: https://www.nice.org.uk/advice/ktt8/chapter/evidence-context
(First choice is a good quality talking therapy, but meds may be useful)
> The full guideline on depression concluded that antidepressants have largely equal efficacy and that choice should mainly depend on side‑effect profile, people's preference and previous experience of treatments, propensity to cause discontinuation symptoms, safety in overdose, interactions and cost. However, a generic SSRI is recommended as first‑choice because of its favourable risk–benefit ratio. Neither escitalopram nor any of the available 'dual action' antidepressants, such as venlafaxine and duloxetine, were judged to have any clinically important advantages over other antidepressants. Results from meta‑analyses (Comparative benefits and harms of second-generation antidepressants for treating major depressive disorder, Gartlehner et al. 2011 and 2 Cochrane reviews: Cipriani et al. 2012, CD006534 and Cipriani et al. 2012, CD006533) have provided no evidence to depart from NICE guidance when selecting antidepressants for people with depression.
And similarly here: http://cks.nice.org.uk/depression#!scenario
> Citalopram and escitalopram have been found to prolong the QT interval and are now contraindicated in people who are already taking medication known to prolong the QT interval as there may be an additive effect [Lundbeck Ltd, 2011a; Lundbeck Ltd, 2011b; MHRA, 2011]. Caution is advised in people with congenital long QT interval or who have pre-existing QT interval prolongation as they have a higher risk than average of developing a ventricular arrhythmia including Torsade de Pointes.
But it's interesting.
Ben Goldacre is moving mountains, stone by stone.
I am prescribed a drug for a rare condition; can I be identified in this dataset?
All practice level information down to presentation level is being released, but no
information about patients is contained in the data. It is not possible to identify
individual patients in the data.
In line with the recent High Court ruling on the release of abortion statistics, data can
be released unless an individual can be identified from the data or from other data
that is already in the public domain. The release of practice level prescribing data
does not enable the identification of individual patients.
If you are the only patient receiving a certain drug in your practice then the number
of items prescribed and their cost for that medicine will be in this dataset but it will
not show which patient received it. Note that information about the price of drugs is
already available in the public domain.
https://medschool.vanderbilt.edu/cpm/center-precision-medici...