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. 2022 Sep;77(9):2699-2711.
doi: 10.1111/all.15275. Epub 2022 Mar 17.

Behavioural patterns in allergic rhinitis medication in Europe: A study using MASK-air® real-world data

Bernardo Sousa-Pinto  1   2   3 Ana Sá-Sousa  1   2   3 Rafael José Vieira  1   2   3 Rita Amaral  1   2   3 Ludger Klimek  4   5 Wienczyslawa Czarlewski  6   7 Josep M Antó  8   9   10   11 Oliver Pfaar  12 Anna Bedbrook  7 Violeta Kvedariene  13 Maria Teresa Ventura  14 Ignacio J Ansotegui  15 Karl-Christian Bergmann  16   17 Luisa Brussino  18 G Walter Canonica  19   20 Victoria Cardona  21 Pedro Carreiro-Martins  22   23 Tomas Casale  24 Lorenzo Cecchi  25 Tomás Chivato  26 Derek K Chu  27 Cemal Cingi  28 Elísio M Costa  29 Alvaro A Cruz  30 Giulia De Feo  31 Philippe Devillier  32 Wytske J Fokkens  33 Mina Gaga  34 Bilun Gemicioğlu  35 Tari Haahtela  36 Juan Carlos Ivancevich  37 Zhanat Ispayeva  38 Marek Jutel  39   40 Piotr Kuna  41 Igor Kaidashev  42 Helga Kraxner  43 Désirée E Larenas-Linnemann  44 Daniel Laune  45 Brian Lipworth  46 Renaud Louis  47 Michael Makris  48 Riccardo Monti  18 Mario Morais-Almeida  49 Ralph Mösges  50 Joaquim Mullol  51 Mikaëla Odemyr  52 Yoshitaka Okamoto  53 Nikolaos G Papadopoulos  54 Vincenzo Patella  55 Nhân Pham-Thi  56 Frederico S Regateiro  57 Sietze Reitsma  33 Philip W Rouadi  58 Boleslaw Samolinski  59 Milan Sova  60 Ana Todo-Bom  58 Luis Taborda-Barata  61   62   63 Peter Valentin Tomazic  64 Sanna Toppila-Salmi  65 Joaquin Sastre  66 Ioanna Tsiligianni  67 Arunas Valiulis  68 Olivier Vandenplas  69 Dana Wallace  70 Susan Waserman  71 Arzu Yorgancioglu  72 Mihaela Zidarn  73 Torsten Zuberbier  16   17 João A Fonseca  1   2   3 Jean Bousquet  16   17   74
Affiliations

Behavioural patterns in allergic rhinitis medication in Europe: A study using MASK-air® real-world data

Bernardo Sousa-Pinto et al. Allergy. 2022 Sep.

Abstract

Background: Co-medication is common among patients with allergic rhinitis (AR), but its dimension and patterns are unknown. This is particularly relevant since AR is understood differently across European countries, as reflected by rhinitis-related search patterns in Google Trends. This study aims to assess AR co-medication and its regional patterns in Europe, using real-world data.

Methods: We analysed 2015-2020 MASK-air® European data. We compared days under no medication, monotherapy and co-medication using the visual analogue scale (VAS) levels for overall allergic symptoms ('VAS Global Symptoms') and impact of AR on work. We assessed the monthly use of different medication schemes, performing separate analyses by region (defined geographically or by Google Trends patterns). We estimated the average number of different drugs reported per patient within 1 year.

Results: We analysed 222,024 days (13,122 users), including 63,887 days (28.8%) under monotherapy and 38,315 (17.3%) under co-medication. The median 'VAS Global Symptoms' was 7 for no medication days, 14 for monotherapy and 21 for co-medication (p < .001). Medication use peaked during the spring, with similar patterns across different European regions (defined geographically or by Google Trends). Oral H1 -antihistamines were the most common medication in single and co-medication. Each patient reported using an annual average of 2.7 drugs, with 80% reporting two or more.

Conclusions: Allergic rhinitis medication patterns are similar across European regions. One third of treatment days involved co-medication. These findings suggest that patients treat themselves according to their symptoms (irrespective of how they understand AR) and that co-medication use is driven by symptom severity.

Keywords: Co-medication; MASK-air; allergic rhinitis; visual analogue scale.

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References

REFERENCES

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