The impact of COVID-19 restrictions on acute hospital presentations due to alcohol-related harm in Waitematā Auckland, New Zealand.

Aims: New Zealand's public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic has largely been considered successful, although there have been concerns surrounding the potential harms of the lockdown restrictions enforced, including alteration of alcohol consumption. New Zealand utilised a four-tiered alert level system of lockdowns and restrictions, with Level 4 denoting strict lockdown. This study aimed to compare alcohol-related hospital presentations during these periods with corresponding calendar-matched dates from the preceding year.

Underuse of beta-blockers by patients with COPD and co-morbid acute coronary syndrome: A nationwide follow-up study in New Zealand.

Background And Objective: Clinical guidelines recommend the use of beta-blockers and other cardiovascular prevention drugs in patients with acute coronary syndrome (ACS). Studies in several countries have found that beta-blockers are underused in patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and co-morbid heart disease, although most have only examined use in subgroups of patients. We undertook a nationwide follow-up study in New Zealand to describe the use of beta-blockers and other cardiovascular prevention drugs in patients with COPD and ACS.

Co-prescribing of contraindicated and use-with-caution drugs in a national cohort of new users of simvastatin: how well are prescribing guidelines followed?

Aim: To describe the use of contraindicated and use-with-caution medicines among new users of simvastatin.

Methods: We used information from Ministry of Health national datasets to establish a cohort of all patients aged >18 years who initiated simvastatin use between January 2006 and December 2013 (n=349,371). We estimated the cumulative incidences of the first dispensing of contraindicated and use-with-caution medicines during simvastatin use, and explored factors associated with co-prescription, using Kaplan-Meir and Cox regression methods, respectively.