Trends in prescribing H2-receptor antagonists and proton pump inhibitors in primary care

Background: H-2-receptor antagonists and proton pump inhibitors account for approximately 15% of primary care prescribing costs in the UK. Aim: To examine the use of antisecretory drugs in primary care between October 1991 and September 1996, Method: Analysis of prescribing data from an ongoing postal survey performed every 3 months on a rolling quota of 250 UK general practitioners (GPs), identified from a representative sampling frame of 1000 GPs. Results: There were 8811 new courses of proton pump inhibitors and 11 948 new courses of H-2-receptor antagonists during this study, The number of new prescriptions for proton pump inhibitors increased by 174.5%, but decreased for H-2-receptor antagonists by 12.5%, Proton pump inhibitors were mostly prescribed for reflux disease (52.7%) and H-2-receptor antagonists for non-specific dyspepsia (43.6%), Proton pump inhibitors (14.1%) were less likely to be stopped than H-2-receptor antagonists (35.3%) overall, and they were less likely to be stopped because of perceived ineffectiveness (5.3%) than H-2-receptor antagonists (23.8%), The rate of stopping treatment because of side-effects was about 3% for both classes of drug. Conclusions: Prescribing of proton pump inhibitors has increased sharply each year since 1991, One reason may be that GPs perceive proton pump inhibitors to be more effective than H-2-receptor antagonists.