Validation of The Health Improvement Network (THIN) primary care database for monitoring prescriptions for smoking cessation medications
Abstract
Purpose: Evaluation of tobacco policy requires high quality and timely data on smoking cessation behaviour in the general population and in relevant target groups. Electronic primary care databases have the potential to provide a valuable source of data due to their size and continuity, and the availability of demographic and socioeconomic data. We therefore sought to investigate whether The Health Improvement Network (THIN) prescribing data are complete and can therefore be used to monitor trends in the prescribing of smoking cessation medications. Methods: The THIN smoking cessation medication prescriptions data for England were compared with smoking cessation medication dispensing data from NHS Prescription Services for January 2004 to December 2005. Results: Throughout the period the rates of prescribing and dispensing were very similar, both for nicotine replacement therapy (NRT) and bupropion combined, and for each type of medication alone. For NRT, dispensing exceeded recorded GP prescribing by 5.5% during the study period. For bupropion, prescribing exceeded dispensing by 5%. Conclusions: THIN prescribing and national dispensing data are highly comparable. THIN prescribing data could potentially be used to monitor longitudinal trends in prescribing for smoking cessation medications. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
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Self-citation
- Authors
- Langley, T. E., Szatkowski, L., Gibson, J., Huang, Y., McNeill, A., Coleman, T., & Lewis, S.
- Affiliations
- University of Nottingham (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Langley, Tessa E.
- Venue
- Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2010-05-04
- Volume
- 19
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 586-590
- ISSN
- 1053-8569 (ISSN-L)
- 1099-1557
- OpenAlex
- W2017917886
- Cited by
- 38
- References
- 15
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2023: 1 · 2022: 2 · 2021: 2 · 2020: 1 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 3 · 2015: 2 · 2014: 1 · 2013: 4 · 2012: 8
- FWCI
- 4.55
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Research Portal (King's College London) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Cancer Research UK
- National Institute for Health and Care Research
- British Heart Foundation
- Economic and Social Research Council (ES/G007489/1)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Physiology › Smoking Behavior and Cessation
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › Health Information Management › Medical Coding and Health Information
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › Health Information Management › Electronic Health Records Systems
- Keywords
- Health Improvement Network, smoking cessation medication, nicotine replacement therapy, bupropion, dispensing data, data validation, prescribing trends
- MeSH terms
- England, United Kingdom, Humans, Nicotine, Practice Patterns, Physicians', Primary Health Care, Databases, Factual, Medical Records Systems, Computerized, Smoking Cessation, Bupropion, Nicotinic Agonists, Dopamine Uptake Inhibitors
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