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Dose_Era for Truven

Hi all!

Has anyone had an experience of populating dose_era for Truven data set?

I am a bit confused about the contents of metQty field because of the following examples:
for the same Acetaminophen 325 MG / Hydrocodone Bitartrate 5 MG Oral Tablet there can be several absolutely different metQty and daysupp combinations:
daysupp = 5 metqty = 20
daysupp = 5 metqty = 500
daysupp = 4 metqty = 0.02
daysupp = 7 metqty = 1
daysupp = 30 metqty = 90

What can it mean? Is it possible to build dose_era having such data?
I will appreciate any ideas.

Thanks in advance.

1 Like

From Truven Documentation
METQTY - MetricQuantity
The number of units dispensed without regard to packaging format. The first nine digits of the NDC number describe how the drug is packaged. As coded on claim. Should correspond to packaging; e.g. if the drug package is tabs, the metric quantity should also be in tabs.

So I would treat metQty as the number of pills provided, which would go into the drug exposure Quantity. Looks like the first person has 4 pills a day for 5 day. Second has 10 pills a day. 3 row does not make sense so maybe best estimate is 1 pill a day. 4th row again, does not make sense. You can either toss these rows or maybe create a rule like if metQty less then or equal to 1 then assume one pill a day and make Quantity equal to days supply. Last row the person has 3 pills a day for 30 days.

Don, thank you for your reply, you confirmed my guesses about these examples.

t