LAUSR

Background: Burden of osteoarthritis (OA) in the UK primary care has not been investigated thoroughly. Aim: To estimate the healthcare use and mortality in people with OA (overall and joint specific). Design and setting: A matched cohort study of adults with an incident diagnosis of OA in primary care were selected for the study using the UK national Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) electronic records. Methods: Healthcare utilisation was measured as the annual average number of primary care consultations and hospitalisations after the index date for any cause and all-cause mortality data in 221,807 OA and an equal number of controls (no OA diagnosis) matched to cases by age (+/-2 years), sex, practice, and year of registration. The associations between OA and healthcare utilisation and all-cause mortality were estimated using multinomial logistic regression and Cox regression respectively, adjusting for covariates. Results: The mean age of the study population was 61 years and 58% were women. In the OA group the median number of primary care consultations per year after the index date was 10.92 compared to 9.59 in non-OA controls (p = 0.001). OA was associated with an increased risk of GP consultation and hospitalisation. The adjusted hazard ratio for all-cause mortality was 1.89 (95% CI 1.85-1.93) for any OA, 2.09 (2.01-2.19) for knee OA, 2.08 (1.95-2.21) for hip OA and 1.80 (1.58-2.06) for wrist/hand OA compared to respective non-OA controls. Conclusion: OA was associated with increased rates of GP consultation, hospitalisation, and all-cause mortality which varied across joint sites.