Healthcare Utilization, Physical and Psychiatric Comorbidities Before Self-Injurious Behavior in Patients with Asthma: A Nested Case-Control Study.

Abstract

Patients with asthma experience more physical, psychological, and financial burdens; a link between asthma and suicidality has been reported in research. This study analyzed the medical utilization and comorbidity before their self-injurious behavior in patients with asthma. We enrolled 186,862 patients newly diagnosed with asthma between 1999 and 2013 from the National Health Insurance Research Database in Taiwan. A total of 500 case subjects had ever conducted self-injurious behaviors during the study period. Based on a nested case-control study, each case was matched with 10 controls derived from the asthma cohort to analyze differences between them and their medical use models. The results indicated that, compared to the control group, the cases presented higher frequencies of outpatient visits and hospitalizations. Regarding comorbidity, the cases had more cardiovascular diseases (adjusted odds ratio [aOR]=1.58; p<0.001), bipolar disorder (aOR=2.97; p<0.001), depression (aOR=4.44; p<0.001), and sleep disorder (aOR=1.83; p<0.001) than the controls. The evidence-based information serves as a reference for medical staff to reduce the occurrence of self-injurious behavior in patients with asthma.