Outpatient antipsychotic use and severe COVID-19: avoiding the impact of age in a real-world data study

The association between use of antipsychotics and COVID-19 outcomes is inconsistent, which may be linked to use of these drugs in age-related diseases. Furthermore, there is little evidence as regards their effect in the non-geriatric population . We aim to assess the association between antipsychotic use and risk of disease progression and hospitalisation due to COVID-19 among the general population, stratifying by age. We conducted a population-based, multiple case-control study to assess: (1) risk of hospitalisation, with cases being patients with a PCR(+)test who required hospitalisation and controls being subjects without a PCR(+) test; and (2) risk of progression to hospitalisation, with cases being the same as those used in the hospitalisation substudy and controls being non-hospitalised PCR(+) patients. We calculated adjusted odds-ratios (aOR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI), both overall and stratified by age. Antipsychotic treatment in patients