Pain Treatment Strategy and Readmission Rates for Medicare Beneficiaries Post-Acute Ischemic Stroke

PurposeStroke is highly prevalent and commonly presents with pain. Primary care providers generally manage follow-up care, although ideal pain management strategies remain unclear. Treatment options include gabapentinoids, tricyclic antidepressants, and various antiseizure medications. We aim to analyze differences in hospital readmissions, a quality metric, for those initiating gabapentin in contrast to other medicines for post-stroke pain in older adults. MethodsIn this matched cohort study, we analyzed a 20% sample of U.S. Medicare beneficiaries aged 65 and over hospitalized for acute ischemic stroke (AIS) between December 31, 2016, and December 31, 2021, who were discharged home. Individuals met insurance coverage criteria and did not take pain medications before hospitalization. We matched individuals on days from discharge to medication initiation. Individuals who initiated Gabapentin within 90 days of discharge (N = 1,546) were matched to individuals who initiated first-line pharmacological treatments for nerve pain other than Gabapentin within 90 days of discharge (N = 285). We investigated the time to re-admissions using a semi-competing risk framework. ResultsThe matched cohort of 1,831 initiators had a median age of 76 (IQR 11) and was 57.2% female and 81.3% Non-Hispanic White. Using the semi-competing risk framework, the hazard of readmissions, given that death had not occurred, was not different for Gabapentin initiators, compared to if they had initiated other medications, hazard ratio 0.871 (95% CI: 0.517, 1.466). ConclusionWe found no significant difference in hospital readmission rates between gabapentin and other post-stroke pain treatment strategies. Our findings contribute to the pharmacosurveillance of gabapentin in real-world Medicare beneficiaries.