Prescription Intervals of Medications for Chronic Use: A Cohort Study
Ryan Muddiman, Padraic Donoghue, Jessica Gómez Lemus, Ann Sinéad Doherty, Fiona Boland, Caroline McCarthy, Frank Moriarty · 2026
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Description
Studies that try to spot when patients stop taking a long-term drug usually look for a gap with no prescriptions. How long a gap counts depends on how often prescriptions normally come. Ryan Muddiman and co-authors measure those normal intervals in a 2026 cohort study of older primary care patients in Ireland.
The team followed more than 38,000 patients from 2011 to 2020 across the twenty most common chronic drug classes. Intervals varied widely even within one class. Each extra prescription a patient received went with a longer gap, while fuller public health coverage went with shorter ones. A statistical waiting-time method gave consistent estimates for most drugs. The results help researchers set fair gap rules instead of guessing, so that stopping a drug is not confused with ordinary spacing.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Ryan Muddiman, Padraic Donoghue, Jessica Gómez Lemus, Ann Sinéad Doherty, Fiona Boland, Caroline McCarthy, Frank Moriarty |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2026 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 29 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |