A UK PRIMARY CARE DATABASE (UKPCD)-UK MEDIPLUS AS A READILY AVAILABLE RESEARCH TOOL FOR DETERMINING THE INCIDENCE AND PREVALENCE OF MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS, ITS TREATMENT, PRESCRIPTION COSTS AND REFERRALS IN UK PRACTICE

OBJECTIVES: The annual prevalence and annual incidence of the diagnosis of multiple sclerosis (MS) in the UK were determined, together with the therapies employed, associated costs and referrals to secondary care. METHODS: This study used UKPCD which contains longitudinal records of nearly 2 million patients. Data are captured daily from General Practitioners using AAH Meditel System 5 software as part of their standard record keeping. Patients were selected according to the primary care coding system ‘Read’ (entered as a problem or problem-linked note code), from June 1997 to June 1998. Therapies, prescription costs and referrals were extracted from these patients’ records. RESULTS: The annual prevalence of MS was 62/100,000 (95% CI 58-66); the annual incidence was 7/100,000(95% CI 6–8). A comparison of all therapies used to manage MS patients showed apparent differences between prevalent and incident patients except in antidepressants (36% both groups). Non-narcotic analgesics were prescribed for 45% of prevalent patients and 32% of incident patients. When therapy for prevalent patients was linked to the Read code for MS, 33% of patients were prescribed central muscle relaxants and 24% antidepressants. The cost to the community for all prescribed products in the study year was £159,508. The majority of note referrals for both prevalent and incident patients were neurological (20%/40%) and physiotherapy (12%/14%), respectively. CONCLUSION: This study is an example of the use of an automated, observational, primary care database such as MediPlus in pharmacoeconomic and outcomes research.