Pramipexole and the Risk of Serious Adverse Events

Exclusion criteria

• ✕. Data cleaning exclusions (e.g., individuals with missing or invalid age or sex or administrative database number, OHIP ineligible on index date, death on or before the index date, non-Ontario residents). The investigators anticipate that very few records will be excluded due to data cleaning.
• ✕. To ensure that patients are new pramipexole users, the investigators will exclude those with any evidence of pramipexole use in the 180 days before the index date.
• ✕. Patients with more than one study drug prescription on the index date will be excluded, as this complicates the ability to ascertain the prescribed dose accurately.
• ✕. The investigators will exclude patients with a prescription of dopamine agonists and non-oral study drugs in the previous 180 days, including the index date.
• ✕. Individuals with end-stage renal disease, chronic dialysis, or a kidney transplant prior to the index date.
• ✕. Evidence with hospital discharge or emergency department visit in the two days prior to or on the index date to ensure a new outpatient prescription.
• ✕. Patients with no outpatient serum creatinine measurement 0- 365 days before the index date will be excluded.
• ✕. Patients with unstable baseline kidney function (If the most recent serum creatinine test before the index date was an inpatient test \[ER or hospitalization\], and there is not at least one 'outpatient' serum creatinine in the year before test date 1) (If the most recent prior serum creatinine test before the index date was an inpatient test \[ER or hospitalization\], and while there is at least 'outpatient' serum creatinine test in the year before, the most recent outpatient test before differs by an eGFR 10 mL/min/1.73 m2 or more from the value on ) will be excluded. In Ontario, it has been shown that outpatient serum creatinine measurements in the province, conducted on a single occasion, indicate stable values.