Table 4 Comparison of dentists’ drug prescribing profile between the three identified clusters—Bivariate analyses (n = 3,014 dentists)
Characteristics in 2019 | Cluster 1 “Better than average practices” N = 686 dentists (22.8%) | Cluster 2 “Average practices” N = 1241 dentists (41.2%) | Cluster 3 “Worse than average practices” N = 1087 dentists (36.1%) | p-value |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Total drug expenses (€) per patient Median (1st quartile; 3rd quartile) | 9.0 (7.5; 11.0) | 9.9 (8.1; 12.0) | 10.9 (8.9; 13.0) | < 0.0001a |
Number of units of all drugs per patient Median (1st quartile; 3rd quartile) | 3.6 (2.9; 4.4) | 3.7 (3.0; 4.6) | 3.9 (3.2; 4.7) | < 0.0001a |
Number of antibiotic prescriptions per 1000 patients Median (1st quartile; 3rd quartile) | 125.6 (83.0; 182.9) | 143.4 (101.2; 201.1) | 133.4 (91.5; 191.7) | < 0.0001 |
Number of systemic non-steroidal anti-inflammatory prescriptions per 1000 patients Median (1st quartile; 3rd quartile) | 22.0 (6.7; 50.0) | 28.3 (9.7; 60.3) | 25.0 (9.3; 57.9) | 0.0005 |
Number of systemic corticosteroids prescriptions per 1000 patients Median (1st quartile; 3rd quartile) | 0.0 (0.0; 8.4) | 0.9 (0.0; 7.5) | 0.9 (0.0; 6.5) | 0.724 |