Prescribing and hospital admissions for asthma in east London

Abstract

Data on asthma admissions by age for east London residents in 134 out of 163 practices covered two years from April 1992 and included some 1602 patients (800 in 1992-3 and 802 in 1993-4). Ninety eight per cent of admissions for asthma were acute and only 3% of all patients admitted were not allocated to a practice. Data were obtained from the integrated district and regional information system with the international classification of disease code 493. Rates per thousand patients per practice were calculated from the average number of patients admitted per year; this excluded readmissions within the same year. The denominators were the resident population of east London in each practice at June 1993 and June 1994. We also investigated admission rates in the age groups under 5, 5-64, and 65 and over.