The impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the utilization of ambulatory care for patients with chronic neurological diseases in Japan: Evaluation of an administrative claims database

  1. Kenichiro Sato
  2. Tatsuo Mano
  3. Yoshiki Niimi
  4. Atsushi Iwata
  5. Tatsushi Toda
  6. Takeshi Iwatsubo

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Abstract

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  1. Version published to 10.5582/bst.2021.01194
  2. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2021.05.10.21256951: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    We applied for access to the DeSC database (https://desc-hc.co.jp/archives/2188) in March 2021, which was approved by DeSC Healthcare, Inc. (https://desc-hc.co.jp/en), permitting us to use the data in April 2021. 2.2.
    DeSC Healthcare
    suggested: None
    We referred to the Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical classification system (ATC code) for identifying medications (A) and the 10th version of the International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems (ICD-10) for identifying diseases (B). 2.5.
    ATC
    suggested: None
    where the term “month number since August 2018” denotes long-term trend (slope) of the month since August 2018, and the term “Period 2020 Apr ∼ July” means that it is after the declaration of state of emergency.
    August
    suggested: None

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    Our study has several limitations. First, the disease definition of neurological diseases used in this study has not always been validated, and it is impossible to return to the original electronic medical record for validation. The disease definitions used in this study are focused more on the content of prescriptions, which could lead to some underestimation of the actual diseases of interest. For example, patients with AD dementia do not always take anti-cholinesterase drugs because of their positive side effects or negative main effects. PD patients in their earliest stage would not be detected by our definition because they often do not receive any anti-PD medications. Furthermore, there is another concern about the overestimation of neurological diseases, especially in the case of epilepsy, since anti-epileptic drugs can sometimes be used for other indications. For instance, valproic acid is often used for bipolar disorder or migraine prophylaxis, and carbamazepine can also be prescribed for bipolar disorder or trigeminal neuralgia. Clonazepam is another anti-epileptic drug that is frequently used to treat symptoms of movement disorders. Moreover, because the DeSC database used in this study does not disclose the details of the regions and localities of the insurers, NHI and SHI, we were unable to account for regional differences caused by differences in the timing and the extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic influenced the local medical systems across Japan, which may...

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    Results from scite Reference Check: We found no unreliable references.

    About SciScore

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  3. Version published to 10.1101/2021.05.10.21256951v1 on medRxiv