1. Regional Variation in Antenatal Late Preterm Steroid Use following the ALPS Trial
- Author
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Taylor Freret, Jessica Cohen, Cynthia Gyamfi-Bannerman, Anjali Kaimal, Scott Lorch, Jason Wright, Alexander Melamed, and Mark Allen Clapp
- Abstract
Objective: To assess regional variation in the use of late preterm steroids use after the publication of the Antenatal Late Preterm Steroids (ALPS) Trial and to understand factors associated with a region's pace of adoption. Methods: This was a repeated cross-sectional study using US natality data across hospital referral regions (HRRs) within the US from February 2015 to October 2017. Inclusion criteria included live-born, non-anomalous, singleton, late preterm (34-36 completed weeks of gestation) neonates born to individuals without pregestational diabetes. HRRs were categorized as either a "slower" or "faster" adopter of antenatal late preterm steroids based on the observed versus expected pace of antenatal steroid adoption in a 1-year period after the trial's dissemination compared to a 1-year pre-dissemination period. Patient and regional factors hypothesized a priori to be associated with the uptake of late preterm steroids were compared between faster and slower adopters. Results: There were 666,097 late preterm births in 282 HRRs during the study period. Of the included HRRs, 136 (48.2%) were considered faster adopters and 146 (51.8%) slower adopters. Faster adopters increased their steroid use by 12.1-percentage points (5.9% to 18.0%) compared to a 5.5-point increase (3.7% to 9.2%) among slower adopters (p
- Published
- 2023
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