Preoperative Antidepressant Prescriptions Are Associated With Increased Opioid Prescriptions and Health Care Use but Similar Rates of Secondary Surgery Following Primary Anterior Cruciate Ligament Reconstruction in a Young Adult Population

Abstract

Purpose

To compare adverse events, postoperative opioid-prescribing patterns, health care use, and secondary anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction (ACLR) surgery rates of patients undergoing primary ACLR with a preoperative antidepressant prescription (ADP) against a propensity-matched group with no preoperative antidepressant prescription (NADP) using the TriNetX Diamond Network.

Methods

Patients undergoing primary ACLR between ages 18 and 35 years of age were queried from the database using International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision/Current Procedural Terminology codes. Patients with an ADP were propensity matched in a 1:1 ratio to patients with NADP based on 11 patient characteristics. Postoperative rates of adverse events, emergency department (ED) visits, in-patient hospitalizations, outpatient services, physical therapy evaluations, postoperative opioid prescriptions, and secondary ACLR were compared at various time points.

Results

In total, 3,736 patients with an ADP with an average age of 21.4 ± 4.5 years undergoing primary ACLR were propensity matched to patients with NADP. A significantly greater percentage of patients with an ADP received opioid prescriptions at 2 weeks (ADP 21%, NADP 11.3%, odds ratio [OR] 2.08), 6 weeks (ADP 25.5%, NADP 13.9%, OR 2.13), 3 months (ADP 27.6%, NADP 15.6%, OR 2.07), 6 months (ADP 30.5%, NADP 17.2%, OR 2.1), and 1 year (ADP 35.3%, NADP 20.2%, OR 2.16) postoperatively (P <.0001 for each time point). Patients with ADP had greater rates of ED visits (ADP 9.7%, NADP 7.1%, P < .0001, OR 1.39) and outpatient appointments (ADP 28.3%, NADP 21.8%) P < .0001, OR 1.42) at 3 months’ postoperatively. Secondary surgery rates at 1 and 2 years were nonsignificant (P = .381 and P = .062, respectively).

Conclusions

Following ACLR, patients with ADP had a significant increase in postoperative opioid prescriptions at all time points and used more ED resources and outpatient services compared with patients with NADP at 3 months’ postoperatively. Thirty-day postoperative adverse events and both 1- and 2-year secondary ACL surgery rates demonstrated no significant differences between the groups.

Level of Evidence

Level III, retrospective comparative case series.