Signals of Muscle Relaxant Drug Interactions Associated with Unintentional Traumatic Injury: A Population-Based Screening Study
Abstract
Background: Use of muscle relaxants is rapidly increasing in the USA. Little is understood about the role of drug interactions in the known association between muscle relaxants and unintentional traumatic injury, a clinically important endpoint causing substantial morbidity, disability, and death.
Objective: We examined potential associations between concomitant drugs (i.e., precipitants) taken with muscle relaxants (affected drugs, i.e., objects) and hospital presentation for unintentional traumatic injury.
Methods: In a series of self-controlled case series studies, we screened to identify drug interaction signals for muscle relaxant + precipitant pairs and unintentional traumatic injury. We used Optum's de-identified Clinformatics® Data Mart Database, 2000-2019. We included new users of a muscle relaxant, aged 16-90 years, who were dispensed at least one precipitant drug and experienced an unintentional traumatic injury during the observation period. We classified each observation day as precipitant exposed or precipitant unexposed. The outcome was an emergency department or inpatient discharge diagnosis for unintentional traumatic injury. We used conditional Poisson regression to estimate rate ratios adjusting for time-varying confounders and then accounted for multiple estimation via semi-Bayes shrinkage.
Results: We identified 74,657 people who initiated muscle relaxants and experienced an unintentional traumatic injury, in whom we studied concomitant use of 2543…
How strong is the evidence?
Evidence Hub reads this as a case series, done in people. Its evidence level is 5 of 5 (Very low · case / narrative / animal / in vitro / in silico). Case reports, narrative reviews, and animal, cell or computer-model studies give the weakest evidence for human health. Reported size: 74,657 participants or records.
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