Although current guidelines for
myocardial infarction (MI) recommend caution in using non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (
NSAIDs), real-world studies of ambulatory settings are rare. This study aimed to explore the patterns and trends of
analgesic prescriptions (especially
NSAIDs) among patients with a history of MI in
ambulatory care settings in Korea. We analyzed real-world data from the Korea National Health Insurance Service database. Patients aged 20 years or older hospitalized with incident MI were identified between January 2007 and December 2015. Ambulatory
analgesics were administered after discharge from incident hospitalization for MI, and annual trends in the prescriptions of individual
analgesics were evaluated. Among the 93,597 patients with incident MI, 75,131 (80.3%) received a total of 2,081,705 ambulatory
analgesic prescriptions. Prescriptions were mainly issued at primary care clinics (80.3%).
Analgesics were most frequently prescribed for
musculoskeletal diseases (often
NSAIDs, 70.7%);
aceclofenac (13.7%) and
diclofenac injection (9.4%) were the frequently used
NSAIDs. Additionally, significant changes were observed in the trends for some
analgesics, such as
loxoprofen. This study suggested that
NSAIDs are commonly prescribed to patients with a history of MI. Future real-world studies are needed to elucidate the
drug-disease interactions of
NSAIDs prescribed after MI, especially for patients with
musculoskeletal diseases.