Abstract
IMPORTANCE: Concerns have been raised that the use of antipsychotic medication for people living with dementia might have increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. OBJECTIVE: To examine multinational trends in antipsychotic drug prescribing for people living with dementia before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: This multinational network cohort study used electronic health records and claims data from 8 databases in 6 countries (France, Germany, Italy, South Korea, the UK, and the US) for individuals aged 65 years or older between January 1, 2016, and November 30, 2021. Two databases each were included for South Korea and the US. EXPOSURES: The introduction of population-wide COVID-19 restrictions from April 2020 to the latest available date of each database. MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES: The main outcomes were yearly and monthly incidence of dementia diagnosis and prevalence of people living with dementia who were prescribed antipsychotic drugs in each database. Interrupted time series analyses were used to quantify changes in prescribing rates before and after the introduction of population-wide COVID-19 restrictions. RESULTS: A total of 857 238 people with dementia aged 65 years or older (58.0% female) were identified in 2016. Reductions in the incidence of dementia were observed in 7 databases in the early phase of the pandemic (April, May, and June 2020), with the most pronounced reduction observed in 1 of the 2 US databases (rate ratio [RR], 0.30; 95% CI, 0.27-0.32); reductions were also observed in the total number of people with dementia prescribed antipsychotic drugs in France, Italy, South Korea, the UK, and the US. Rates of antipsychotic drug prescribing for people with dementia increased in 6 databases representing all countries. Compared with the corresponding month in 2019, the most pronounced increase in 2020 was observed in May in South Korea (Kangwon National University database) (RR, 2.11; 95% CI, 1.47-3.02) and June in the UK (RR, 1.96; 95% CI, 1.24-3.09). The rates of antipsychotic drug prescribing in these 6 databases remained high in 2021. Interrupted time series analyses revealed immediate increases in the prescribing rate in Italy (RR, 1.31; 95% CI, 1.08-1.58) and in the US Medicare database (RR, 1.43; 95% CI, 1.20-1.71) after the introduction of COVID-19 restrictions. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: This cohort study found converging evidence that the rate of antipsychotic drug prescribing to people with dementia increased in the initial months of the COVID-19 pandemic in the 6 countries studied and did not decrease to prepandemic levels after the acute phase of the pandemic had ended. These findings suggest that the pandemic disrupted the care of people living with dementia and that the development of intervention strategies is needed to ensure the quality of care.