Subject characteristics
During the study period, 26,752 patients were identified as having had a common cold. After excluding those aged < 20 years and those who visited medical care institutions other than primary care clinics, 10,776 patients were selected. Among these patients, a total of 3,530 were included in the final analysis after excluding those without any drug prescription associated with the common cold and diagnosed with GI disorders within the 90 days before the diagnosis of colds (Fig. 1).
The demographic and clinical characteristics of the study subjects are summarised in Table 1. The proportion of female subjects was higher than that of male subjects (51.76% vs. 48.24%), and most patients were covered by the National Health Insurance (98.47%). The proportion of patients who were prescribed NSAIDs was 57.22%, and the most prevalent comorbid disorder was hypertension (16.09%), followed by diabetes mellitus (8.53%).