Paediatric drug use with focus on off-label prescriptions in Swedish outpatient care – a nationwide study

AIM: To determine drug prescription and proportion of off-label dispensing in the Swedish paediatric outpatient population. METHODS: All dispensed outpatient prescriptions to children aged 0 < 18 years as well as the proportion of off-label drug use during 2007 were analysed using data from the Swedish Prescribed Drug Register. RESULTS: In total, 2.19 million drug prescriptions of 898 different drug substances were dispensed to paediatric patients, and of those substances, 64% had been dispensed off-label at least once. The overall off-label rate of all prescriptions was 13.5%, among which topical drugs as well as sex hormones were the most commonly prescribed off-label drugs. More than half of all children in Sweden had received at least one prescribed drug in 2007. CONCLUSIONS: There is a high prescribing of medicines to children in outpatient care in Sweden with a considerable amount of off-label prescriptions. Topically administered drugs, sex hormones, antidepressants, hypnotics, cardiovascular drugs and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs were commonly prescribed off-label.