Examining the Effect of Deprivation on Prescribing Behaviours in Northern Ireland

This study uses classifications of Metropolitan and Non-Metropolitan behavioural archetypes of General Practitioner practice in Northern Ireland. Of the 333 practices operating in Northern Ireland at the start of the study period (March 2018), 90 were classified as Metropolitan and 243 as Non-Metropolitan. This paper seeks to examine any associations between deprivation and each archetype and to investigate what their prescription behaviours would be when controlled for deprivation. It was found that for each archetype, as the deprivation level of the area in which a practice was located increased, so too did the prescribing levels associated with that practice. A large proportion of Metropolitan practices (52.2%) were located in high deprivation areas and these practices had prescribing levels that were 40.3% higher in the number of items prescribed per registered patient than practices in low deprivation areas within the same archetype. Only 13.9% of Non-Metropolitan practices were located in high deprivation areas and had levels of prescribing 11.2% greater than practices in areas of low deprivation within the same archetype. A comparison of only practices in low deprivation areas in both archetypes found that higher prescribing levels were seen in Non-Metropolitan practices, the complete opposite of the trend observed when comparing all practices where Metropolitan practices show higher prescribing levels.