Trends in the prescription of antidiabetic medications from 2009 to 2012 in a general practice of Southern Italy: a population-based study.

Objective: To assess the prescribing pattern of antidiabetic drugs (AD) in a general practice of Southern Italy from 2009 to 2012, with focus on behaviour prescribing changes.

Methods: This retrospective, drug utilization study was conducted using administrative databases of the Local Health Unit of Caserta (Southern Italy) including about 1 million citizens. The standardized prevalence of AD use was calculated within each study year. A sample cohort of 78,789 subjects with at least one prescription of AD was identified during the study period.

Results: There was an overall increase of the proportion of the patients treated with monotherapy, which was significant for insulin monotherapy (from 11.2 to 14.6%, p<0.001). The proportion of patients treated with metformin remained stable (from 68.3% to 67.8%, p=0.076), while those receiving sulfonylurea dropped from 18.4% to 12.5% (p<0.001); GLP-1 analogues and DPP-4 inhibitors showed the greatest increase (from 1.2% to 6.6%, p<0.001). In the whole sample of 25,148 new AD users, metformin was the most commonly prescribed drug in monotherapy (41.9%), while insulin ranked second (13.3%).

Conclusion: This study shows a rising trend of AD monotherapy, with sulfonylureas and incretins showing the more negative and positive trend, respectively.