Using primary care databases for addiction research: An introduction and overview of strengths and weaknesses

Daniel Kotz; Amy O'Donnell; Sterling McPherson; Kyla H Thomas

doi:10.1016/j.abrep.2022.100407

Using primary care databases for addiction research: An introduction and overview of strengths and weaknesses

Addict Behav Rep. 2022 Jan 13:15:100407. doi: 10.1016/j.abrep.2022.100407. eCollection 2022 Jun.

Authors

Daniel Kotz^{1

2

3}, Amy O'Donnell⁴, Sterling McPherson⁵, Kyla H Thomas⁶

Affiliations

¹ Institute of General Practice, Addiction Research and Clinical Epidemiology Unit, Medical Faculty of the Heinrich-Heine-University Düsseldorf, Germany.
² Research Department of Behavioural Science and Health, Institute of Epidemiology and Health Care, University College London, UK.
³ Usher Institute of Population Health Sciences and Informatics, University of Edinburgh, UK.
⁴ Population Health Sciences Institute, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK.
⁵ Program of Excellence in Addictions Research and the Analytics and PsychoPharmacology Laboratory (APPL), Washington State University, Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine, USA.
⁶ Population Health Sciences, Bristol Medical School, UK.

Abstract

Primary care databases extract and combine routine data from the electronic patient records of various participating practices on a regular basis. These databases can be used for innovative and relevant addiction research, but such use requires a thorough understanding of how data were originally collected and how they need to be processed and statistically analysed to produce sound scientific evidence. The aims of this paper are therefore to (1) make a case for why primary care databases should be considered more frequently for addiction research; (2) provide an overview of how primary care databases are constructed; (3) highlight important methodological and statistical strengths and weaknesses of using primary care databases for research; and (4) give practical advice about how a researcher can get access to databases. Three major primary care databases from the UK serve as examples: Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD), The Health Improvement Network (THIN), and QResearch.

Keywords: Addiction research; Primary care database; Retrospective cohort studies.

Publication types

Review

Grants and funding

UG1 DA013714/DA/NIDA NIH HHS/United States