Mortality and use of psychotropic medication in patients with stroke:a population-wide, register-based study

OBJECTIVES: The study sought to describe whether psychotropic medication may have long-term side effects in patients with stroke compared with controls. SETTING: Use of national register data from healthcare services were identified from the Danish National Patient Registry in Denmark. Information about psychotropic medication use was obtained from the Danish Register of Medicinal Product Statistics. OBJECTIVES: We aimed to evaluate all-cause mortality in relation to the use of benzodiazepines, antidepressants and antipsychotics in patients with stroke and matched controls. PARTICIPANTS: Patients with a diagnosis of stroke and either no drug use or preindex use of psychotropic medication (n=49 968) and compared with control subjects (n=86 100) matched on age, gender, marital status and community location. PRIMARY OUTCOME MEASURE: All-cause mortality. RESULTS: All-cause mortality was higher in patients with previous stroke compared with control subjects. Mortality HRs were increased for participants prescribed serotonergic antidepressant drugs (HR=1.699 (SD=0.030), p=0.001 in patients; HR=1.908 (0.022), p<0.001 in controls, respectively), tricyclic antidepressants (HR=1.365 (0.045), p<0.001; HR=1.733 (0.022), p<0.001), benzodiazepines (HR=1.643 (0.040), p<0.001; HR=1.776 (0.053), p<0.001), benzodiazepine-like drugs (HR=1.776 (0.021), p<0.001; HR=1.547 (0.025), p<0.001), first-generation antipsychotics (HR=2.001 (0.076), p<0.001; HR=3.361 (0.159), p<0.001) and second-generation antipsychotics (HR=1.645 (0.070), p<0.001; HR=2.555 (0.086), p<0.001), compared with no drug use. Interaction analysis suggested statistically significantly higher mortality HRs for most classes of psychotropic drugs in controls compared with patients with stroke. CONCLUSIONS: All-cause mortality was higher in patients with stroke and controls treated with benzodiazepines, antidepressants and antipsychotics than in their untreated counterparts. Our findings suggest that care should be taken in the use and prescription of such drugs, and that they should be used in conjunction with adequate clinical controls

Use of reperfusion therapy and time delay in patients with ischaemic stroke by immigration status:a register-based cohort study in Denmark

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE: Reperfusion therapy is the mainstay of treatment for acute ischaemic stroke (AIS); however, little is known about the use of reperfusion therapy and time delay amongst immigrants. METHODS: This is a Danish nationwide register‐based cohort study of patients with AIS aged ≥18 years (n = 49,817) recruited from 2009 to 2018. Use of reperfusion therapy (intravenous thrombolysis and/or mechanical thrombectomy) and time delay between immigrants and Danish‐born residents were compared using multivariable logistics and quantile regression. RESULTS: Overall, 10,649 (39.8%) Danish‐born residents and 452 (39.0%) immigrants with AIS were treated with reperfusion therapy in patients arriving <4.5 h following stroke onset. Compared with Danish‐born residents, immigrants had lower odds of receiving reperfusion therapy after adjustment for prehospital delay, age, sex, stroke severity, sociodemographic factors and comorbidities (adjusted odds ratio 0.67; 95% confidence interval 0.49‒0.92, p = 0.01). The lowest odds were observed amongst immigrants originating from Poland and non‐Western countries. Similarly, immigrants had a longer prehospital delay than Danish‐born residents in the fully adjusted model in patients arriving <4.5 h after stroke onset (15 min; 95% confidence interval 4‒26 min, p = 0.03). No evidence was found that system delay and clinical outcome differed between immigrants and Danish‐born residents in patients eligible for reperfusion therapy after adjustment for sociodemographic factors and comorbidities. CONCLUSION: Immigration status was significantly associated with lower chances of receiving reperfusion therapy and there may be differences in patient delay between immigrants and Danish‐born residents in patients arriving to a stroke unit <4.5 h after stroke onset