The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on antiallergics' prescription trends

ABSTRACT

Background: During the COVID-19 pandemic, the Portuguese government implemented several stringent measures and all the health care sectors were reorganized. The goal of this study was to assess the antiallergic prescription tendency in outpatient settings in Portugal, including in public primary health care (PC) and hospital care (HC) centers, and to evaluate potential changes during the COVID-19 pandemic. Method: The data on antiallergic prescription, in the form of monthly Defined Daily Doses (DDD), prescribed by physicians of the public health sector, were retrieved from the System of Information and Monitoring of the Portuguese National Health System (SIM@SNS) public-access platform, from January 2018 to October 2020. We used the student's t-test with 95% confidence level to compare antiallergics' prescription between the analyzed years. Results: Antiallergics' prescription in outpatient settings of PC/HC (Figure 1) presented a seasonal pattern with increased peaks being observed throughout autumn and winter and decreased peaks in summer, with the exception of an usual spike occurring in May. In 2020, the monthly average prescription (PC= 2 747 409 ± 824 538;HC= 1 237 395 ± 289 133) was found to be lower than in 2018 (PC= 3 185 220 ± 605 702;HC =1 392 217 ± 159 337) and 2019 (PC= 3 327 975 ± 688 781;HC=1 489 159 ± 213 014), p>0.05 (in PC and HC when comparing with 2018 and 2019). In 2020, upon COVID-19 emergence, an overall decrease on antiallergics' prescription was observed, being particularly noticeable and statistically significant (p>0.05) on PC (p = 0,028) and HC (p = 0,037) centers after May. Conclusion: A significant decline on antiallergics' prescription was detected in 2020, mainly over the spring/summer months following COVID-19 emergence, probably due to the reduction in all non-essential health care activity, especially in HC. Another interesting outcome is the absence of the usual spike in May 2020, as this period was coincident with the home confinement and routine mask use, which may have reduced patients contact with outdoor allergens. (Table Presented).