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Table 1 Characteristics the patients and GP practices in the enquiry, field and final database

From: Linking community pharmacy dispensing data to prescribing data of general practitioners

Database

DNSGP-2

SFK

Ā Ā 

Type

Enquiry records

File records

Linked dataset

Ā 

Time period

Oct 2000 ā€“ Jun 2002

Jan 1999 ā€“ Dec 2003

Jan 1999 ā€“ Dec 2003

Ā 

% Female

57.8%

55.8%

58.0%

P < 0.02

% Publicly insured

67.5%

-*

68.5%

p < 0.00

Mean age (SD)

40.9 years (22.7)

38.4 years (22.7)

42.2 years (21.8)

p < 0.00

Mean number of Rx/patient (SD)

7.9 (11.9)

28.9 (59.6)

43.7 (68.6)

p < 0.00

Nr. of Rx/patients/month

0.68

0.63

0.91

Ā 

Nr. of patients

233,303

332,707

110,102

Ā 

Nr. of Rx

1,841,271

10,049,944

4,816,247

Ā 

Pharmacies

-**

123

112

Ā 

GP practice

N = 90***

N = 89

N = 83

Ā 

ā€ƒā€ƒā€ƒSolo

49 (54.4%)

46 (53.5%)

43 (51.8%)

p = 0.11

ā€ƒā€ƒā€ƒDuo

18 (20.0%)

17 (19.8%)

17 (20.5%)

Ā 

ā€ƒā€ƒā€ƒGroup

14 (15.6%)

14 (16.3%)

14 (16.9%)

Ā 

ā€ƒā€ƒā€ƒHealthcare centre

9 (10.0%)

9 (10.5%)

9 (10.8%)

Ā 

Deprived area

8 (8.9%)

8 (8.3%)

8 (9.6%)

Ā 

Degree of urbanisation

Ā Ā Ā Ā 

ā€ƒā€ƒā€ƒNot urbanised

9 (10.0%)

9 (10.5%)

9 (12.0%)

p = 0.21

ā€ƒā€ƒā€ƒHardly urbanised

17 (18.9%)

16 (18.6%)

14 (16.9%)

Ā 

ā€ƒā€ƒā€ƒAveraged urbanised

19 (21.1%)

19 (22.1%)

19 (22.9%)

Ā 

ā€ƒā€ƒā€ƒStrongly urbanised

24 (26.7%)

22 (25.6%)

21 (24.1%)

Ā 

ā€ƒā€ƒā€ƒExtremely urbanised

21 (23.3%)

20 (23.3%)

20 (24.1%)

Ā 
  1. We used chi-square to test for differences in % female, % publicly insured, practice type, and degree of urbanisation. T-test was used for mean age, and Mann-Whitney U-test for mean number of Rx/patient. Differences were assessed between DNSGP-2 versus linked dataset.
  2. * Not used in the linkage process
  3. ** Not available in the DNSGP-2
  4. *** Only non-dispensing GP practices included. In total 101 GP-practices collected prescribing data during the DNSGP-2