LAUSR

Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) has led to the death of millions worldwide (1). The urgent need for effective therapies for COVID-19 led to the deployment of several rapidly developed large-scale randomized clinical trials (2). The RECOVERY (Randomized Evaluation of COVID-19 Therapy) trial—released in preprint format June 2020 and published in peer-reviewed format July 2020— demonstrated reduced mortality among patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia who received the corticosteroid dexamethasone (3). However, the timing of the clinical impact of RECOVERY and the generalizability of its effect on clinical outcomes outside of the clinical trial setting are unclear. In this study, we sought to assess changes in corticosteroid prescribing patterns and outcomes related to the release of the RECOVERY trial results using quasiexperimental difference-in-differences (DiD) analysis.