Fatal opioid overdoses during and shortly after hospital admissions in England: A case-crossover study

This study examines whether hospital admission and discharge are associated with increased risk of opioid-related death. Methods and findingsWe conducted a case-crossover study of opioid-related deaths in England. Our study included 13,609 deaths between January 1, 2010 and December 31, 2019 among individuals aged 18 to 64. For each death, we sampled 5 control days from the period 730 to 28 days before death. We used data from the national Hospital Episode Statistics database to determine the time proximity of deaths and control days to hospital admissions. We estimated the association between hospital admission and opioid-related death using conditional logistic regression, with a reference category of time neither admitted to the hospital nor within 14 days of discharge. A total of 236/13,609 deaths (1.7%) occurred following drug use while admitted to the hospital. The risk during hospital admissions was similar or lower than periods neither admitted to the hospital nor recently discharged, with odds ratios 1.03 (95% CI 0.87 to 1.21;p = 0.75) for the first 14 days of an admission and 0.41 (95% CI 0.30 to 0.56;p
Source: PLoS Medicine - Category: Internal Medicine Authors: Source Type: research