Figure 4.

Monthly trends in the duration of reported shortages for different subgroups from 2018 to 2020: Panel A. Emergency medicines and non-emergency medicines. Panel B. Dosage forms. Panel C. Route of administrations. Panel D. Therapeutic areas. To avoid possible bias stemming from the possibility that shortages starting earlier would expect longer duration, trend tests for the duration of shortages were performed after excluding data from the first and last six months (almost one standard deviation of average shortage duration) of the study period.