• Omer Gendelman, Raz Shapira, Shmuel Tiosano, Yuval Kuntzman, Avishai M Tsur, Aliza Hakimian, Doron Comaneshter, Arnon D Cohen, Dan Buskila, and Howard Amital.
• Department of Medicine 'B', Sheba Medical Center, Tel-Hashomer, Israel.
• Int. J. Clin. Pract. 2021 Nov 1; 75 (11): e14729.

AimTo investigate the health care utilisation and drug consumption of patients with fibromyalgia (FM).Materials And MethodsThis is a cross-sectional study using the Clalit Health Care database. Clalit is the largest HMO in Israel, serving more than 4.4 million enrollees. We identified FM patients and age and sex-matched controls. Indicators of healthcare utilisation and drug consumption were extracted and analysed for both groups.ResultsThe study included 14 296 FM patients and 71 324 controls. The mean age was 56 years, with a women predominance of 92%. The mean number of visits across of all healthcare services (hospitalisations, emergency department visit, general practitioner clinic visits, rheumatology clinic visits, and pain clinic visits) and the mean difference (MD) were significantly higher for FM patients compared with controls (MD 0.66, P < .001; MD 0.23, P < .001; MD 7.49, P < .001; MD 0.31, P < .001; MD 0.13, P < .001), respectively. Drug use was significantly and consistently higher among FM patients compared with controls; NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs) OR 2.56, P < .001; Opioids OR 4.23, P < .001; TCA (tricyclic antidepressants) OR 8.21, P < .001; Gabapentinoids OR 6.31, P < .001; SSRI (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) OR 2.07, P < .001; SNRI (serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor) OR 7.43, P < .001.ConclusionHealthcare utilisation and drug use are substantially higher among patients with FM compared with controls.© 2021 John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

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