Abstract Body

Background and purpose:

Menopausal hormone therapy (MHT) use in Australia declined rapidly following 2002 publication of the WHI study, and then plateaued. Since then, findings of follow-up WHI analyses may encourage less restrictive MHT use. We aimed to assess trends in MHT prescribing following the documented plateau in prescribing.

Method:

A longitudinal analysis from the ReCEnT cohort study. In ReCEnT, GP registrars (trainees) document 60 consecutive consultations, six-monthly, on three occasions.

The outcome factor was MHT (estrogen and/or progestogen) prescribed. All menopause-related problems for female patients aged 25 years-or-over were included in the primary analysis. The secondary analysis, of ratio of MHT to non-MHT symptomatic medicines, included only problems for which MHT or non-MHT symptomatic medicines were prescribed. Associations of MHT-prescribing, including year (2010-2019), were assessed by univariate and multivariable logistic regression.

Results:

2,839 registrars documented 1,509 menopause-related problems. For all menopause-related problems, 1169 (75%) patients were prescribed MHT or a non-MHT symptomatic drug. Of these, 965 (82%) were MHT. There was a small reduction in MHT prescribing over time (OR=0.96 [CI=0.91, 1.00] per year), not reaching statistical significance (p=0.078). For the ratio of MHT prescription to non-MHT symptomatic medications, there was no statistically significant change in MHT prescribing (OR=0.95 [CI=0.89, 1.01], p=0.12).

Conclusions:

There was no statistically significant change in MHT prescribing in the period eight-to-17 years following WHI publication. It may still be too early to see a rise in MHT prescribing in response to subsequent follow-up studies, given the generally slow uptake of research evidence into practice.