Ten-year trends in prescribing of antiarrhythmic drugs in Australian primary care patients with atrial fibrillation

Woldesellassie M Bezabhe; Luke R Bereznicki; Jan Radford; Mohammed S Salahudeen; Edward Garrahy; Barbara C Wimmer; Ivan Bindoff; Gregory M Peterson

doi:10.1111/imj.15514

Ten-year trends in prescribing of antiarrhythmic drugs in Australian primary care patients with atrial fibrillation

Intern Med J. 2021 Oct;51(10):1732-1735. doi: 10.1111/imj.15514.

Authors

Woldesellassie M Bezabhe¹, Luke R Bereznicki¹, Jan Radford², Mohammed S Salahudeen¹, Edward Garrahy², Barbara C Wimmer¹, Ivan Bindoff¹, Gregory M Peterson¹

Affiliations

¹ School of Pharmacy and Pharmacology, University of Tasmania, Hobart, Tasmania, Australia.
² Launceston Clinical School, Tasmanian School of Medicine, University of Tasmania, Launceston, Tasmania, Australia.

PMID: 34664362
DOI: 10.1111/imj.15514

Abstract

Despite changes in antiarrhythmic drug (AAD) choice in patients with atrial fibrillation (AF), trends in AAD prescribing remain not investigated. We aimed to examine these changes using a nationwide Australian general practice data from 2009 to 2018. Over the 10 years, AAD prescribing in patients with AF decreased, which was mainly due to a reduction in the use of amiodarone, sotalol and digoxin. In contrast, the use of beta-blockers and flecainide increased.

Keywords: antiarrhythmic drugs; arrhythmia; atrial fibrillation; primary care.

MeSH terms

Amiodarone*
Anti-Arrhythmia Agents / therapeutic use
Atrial Fibrillation* / drug therapy
Atrial Fibrillation* / epidemiology
Australia / epidemiology
Humans
Primary Health Care

Substances

Anti-Arrhythmia Agents
Amiodarone