Sweden established the Prescribed drug registry was established July 2005, covering the whole Swedish population. (1) Through the personal identity number(2) it can be seamlessly linked to other data sets:
- The more than 100 Diseae / Intervention registries. (3)
- The national patient registry including all out-/inpatient events. (4)
- Cancer registry (5)
- Cause of death registry (6)
- Socioeoconomic data (7)
- And more..
During the first 10 years, there were more than 300 publications based on this data(8). In a study from 2016 (9), Wallerstedt et al conclude “In the present study, we show that drug effectiveness studies, based on register data collected in a non-interventional setting, can contribute, but seldom do, to new knowledge on intended beneficial drug effects.”
Intersted to learn more, don’t miss this upcoming webinar: True signal of effect from Real World Data - Experience from the National Prescribed Drug Registry in Sweden
References:
1. Wettermark B, Hammar N, MichaelFored C, Leimanis A, Otterblad Olausson P, Bergman U, et al. The new Swedish Prescribed Drug Register—Opportunities for pharmacoepidemiological research and experience from the first six months. Pharmacoepidemiol Drug Saf. 2007;16(7):726–35.
2. Ludvigsson JF, Otterblad-Olausson P, Pettersson BU, Ekbom A. The Swedish personal identity number: possibilities and pitfalls in healthcare and medical research. Eur J Epidemiol. 2009 Nov;24(11):659–67.
3. Emilsson L, Lindahl B, Köster M, Lambe M, Ludvigsson JF. Review of 103 Swedish Healthcare Quality Registries. J Intern Med. 2015 Jan;277(1):94–136.
4. Ludvigsson JF, Andersson E, Ekbom A, Feychting M, Kim JL, Reuterwall C, et al. External review and validation of the Swedish national inpatient register. BMC Public Health [Internet]. 2011 Dec [cited 2018 Jul 9];11(1). Available from: http://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2458-11-450
5. Barlow L, Westergren K, Holmberg L, Talbäck M. The completeness of the Swedish Cancer Register – a sample survey for year 1998. Acta Oncol. 2009 Jan;48(1):27–33.
6. Brooke HL, Talbäck M, Hörnblad J, Johansson LA, Ludvigsson JF, Druid H, et al. The Swedish cause of death register. Eur J Epidemiol. 2017;32(9):765–73.
7. Ludvigsson JF, Svedberg P, Olén O, Bruze G, Neovius M. The longitudinal integrated database for health insurance and labour market studies (LISA) and its use in medical research. Eur J Epidemiol. 2019;34(4):423–37.
8. Wallerstedt SM, Wettermark B, Hoffmann M. The First Decade with the Swedish Prescribed Drug Register - A Systematic Review of the Output in the Scientific Literature. Basic Clin Pharmacol Toxicol. 2016 Nov;119(5):464–9.
9. Wallerstedt SM, Hoffmann M. Evaluating beneficial drug effects in a non-interventional setting: a review of effectiveness studies based on Swedish Prescribed Drug Register data. Br J Clin Pharmacol. 2016 Dec 8;