Neonatal drug withdrawal syndrome: cross-country comparison using hospital administrative data in England, the USA, Western Australia and Ontario, Canada
Published in
Archives of Disease in Childhood -- Fetal & Neonatal Edition, August 2015
We determined trends over time in the prevalence of neonatal drug withdrawal syndrome (NWS) in England compared with that reported in the USA, Western (W) Australia and Ontario, Canada. We also examined variation in prevalence of NWS according to maternal age, birth weight and across the English NHS by hospital trusts.
Retrospective study using national hospital administrative data (Hospital Episode Statistics) for the NHS in England between 1997 and 2011. NWS was identified using international classification of disease codes in hospital admission records. We searched the research literature and contacted researchers to identify studies reporting trends in the prevalence of NWS.
Prevalence of NWS by calendar year per 1000 live births for each country/state. For births in England, prevalence by maternal age group and birth weight group. Prevalence by NHS trust and region at birth, and funnel plot to show outlying English NHS hospital trusts (>3 SD of mean prevalence).
Mean prevalence rates of recorded NWS increased in all four countries. Rates stabilised in England and W. Australia from the early 2000s and rose steeply in the USA and Ontario during the late 2000s. The most recent prevalence rates were 2.7/1000 live births in England (2011; 1544 cases); 2.7/1000 in W. Australia (2009); 3.6/1000 in the USA (2009) and 5.1/1000 in Ontario (2011). The highest prevalence in England was among babies born to mothers aged 25-34 years at delivery and among babies born with low birth weight (1500-2500 g). In England in 2011, 8.6% of hospital trusts had a recorded prevalence outside 3 SD of the overall average (7% above, 1% below). The North East region of England had the highest recorded prevalence of NWS.
Although recorded NWS is stable in England and W. Australia, rising rates in the USA and Ontario may reflect better recognition and/or increased use of prescribed opiate analgesics and highlight the need for surveillance. The extent to which different prevalence rates by hospital trust reflect variation in occurrence, recognition or recording requires further investigation.
Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutical Science
3
3%
Psychology
3
3%
Other
10
10%
Unknown
30
29%
Attention Score in Context
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 5. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 20 October 2015.
All research outputs
#10,268,225
of 34,363,559 outputs
Outputs from Archives of Disease in Childhood -- Fetal & Neonatal Edition
#1,290
of 2,707 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#90,195
of 302,188 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Archives of Disease in Childhood -- Fetal & Neonatal Edition
#15
of 47 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 34,363,559 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 70th percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 2,707 research outputs from this source. They typically receive more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 9.8. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 52% of its peers.
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