South Korea has a compulsory universal health insurance system for entire Korean population. The number of people who are covered was more than 50 million. The Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA) database contains nationwide claim data. By utilizing this database, the investigators have performed many studies regarding asthma in South Korea. In this study, the investigators aimed to analyze the current status of OCS use in South Korea by using HIRA database.
Primary outcome was the OCS prescription in all patients with asthma. Secondary outcome was OCS prescription according to the asthma severity, age, sex, socioeconomic status and the type of hospital.
Inclusion criteria was 1) Age ≥ 15 years; 2) ICD-10 codes for asthma (J45.x-J46) as the primary or within fourth secondary diagnosis; 3) use of more than one drug for asthma at least twice per year (long acting muscarinic antagonist (LAMA), long acting beta2 agonist (LABA), ICS, ICS+LABA, short acting muscarinic antagonist (SAMA), short acting beta2 agonist (SABA), SAMA+SABA, theophylline, leukotriene antagonist, systemic corticosteroids, or systemic beta agonist).
