A Network Approach for the Study of Drug Prescriptions: Analysis of Administrative Records from a Local Health Unit (ASL TO4, Regione Piemonte, Italy)

Gianluca Miglio, Lara Basso, Lucrezia G. Armando, Sara Traina, Elisa Benetti, Abdoulaye Diarassouba, Raffaella Baroetto Parisi, Mariangela Esiliato, Cristina Rolando, Elisa Remani and Clara Cena
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Gianluca Miglio: Dipartimento di Scienza e Tecnologia del Farmaco, Università degli Studi di Torino, Via Pietro Giuria 9, 10125 Turin, Italy
Lara Basso: Dipartimento di Scienza e Tecnologia del Farmaco, Università degli Studi di Torino, Via Pietro Giuria 9, 10125 Turin, Italy
Lucrezia G. Armando: Dipartimento di Scienza e Tecnologia del Farmaco, Università degli Studi di Torino, Via Pietro Giuria 9, 10125 Turin, Italy
Sara Traina: Dipartimento di Scienza e Tecnologia del Farmaco, Università degli Studi di Torino, Via Pietro Giuria 9, 10125 Turin, Italy
Elisa Benetti: Dipartimento di Scienza e Tecnologia del Farmaco, Università degli Studi di Torino, Via Pietro Giuria 9, 10125 Turin, Italy
Abdoulaye Diarassouba: Struttura Complessa Farmacia Territoriale ASL TO4, Regione Piemonte, Via Po 11, 10034 Chivasso, Italy
Raffaella Baroetto Parisi: Struttura Complessa Farmacia Territoriale ASL TO4, Regione Piemonte, Via Po 11, 10034 Chivasso, Italy
Mariangela Esiliato: Struttura Complessa Farmacia Territoriale ASL TO4, Regione Piemonte, Via Po 11, 10034 Chivasso, Italy
Cristina Rolando: Struttura Complessa Farmacia Territoriale ASL TO4, Regione Piemonte, Via Po 11, 10034 Chivasso, Italy
Elisa Remani: Struttura Complessa Farmacia Territoriale ASL TO4, Regione Piemonte, Via Po 11, 10034 Chivasso, Italy
Clara Cena: Dipartimento di Scienza e Tecnologia del Farmaco, Università degli Studi di Torino, Via Pietro Giuria 9, 10125 Turin, Italy

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 9, 1-20

Abstract: In a Drug Prescription Network (DPN), each drug is represented as a node and two drugs co-prescribed to the same patient are represented as an edge linking the nodes. The use of DPNs is a novel approach that has been proposed as a means to study the complexity of drug prescription. The aim of this study is to demonstrate the analytical power of the DPN-based approach when it is applied to the analysis of administrative data. Drug prescription data that were collected at a local health unit (ASL TO4, Regione Piemonte, Italy), over a 12-month period (July 2018–June 2019), were used to create several DPNs that correspond to the five levels of the Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical classification system. A total of 5,431,335 drugs prescribed to 361,574 patients (age 0–100 years; 54.7% females) were analysed. As indicated by our results, the DPNs were dense networks, with giant components that contain all nodes. The disassortative mixing of node degrees was observed, which implies that non-random connectivity exists in the networks. Network-based methods have proven to be a flexible and efficient approach to the analysis of administrative data on drug prescription.

Keywords: drug prescriptions; networks; pattern recognition (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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