Table 2. Characteristics of the study population across different exposure periods.

	Non-event period, n=3491	Event period, n=3929	P value	Event lag period, n=3983	P value
Sex			0.334		0.513
Male	1881 (53.88%)	2161 (55.00%)		2116 (53.13%)
Female	1610 (46.12%)	1768 (45.00%)		1867 (46.87%)
Age, years; median (SD)	70.61 (7.32)	71.03 (7.54)	0.035*	71.04 (7.65)	0.046*
Hypertension	2641 (75.65%)	3010 (76.61%)	0.334	2991 (75.09%)	0.577
Coronary heart disease	1791 (51.30%)	2028 (51.62%)	0.788	2040 (51.22%)	0.941
Diabetes mellitus	1184 (33.92%)	1265 (32.20%)	0.116	1291 (32.41%)	0.168
Hyperlipidaemia	1110 (31.80%)	1251 (31.84%)	0.968	1271 (31.91%)	0.916
Arrhythmia	743 (21.28%)	827 (21.05%)	0.805	849 (21.32%)	0.973
Atrial fibrillation	241 (6.90%)	261 (6.64%)	0.656	289 (7.26%)	0.554
Gastritis	449 (12.86%)	463 (11.78%)	0.158	500 (12.55%)	0.690
Any baseline medication	3160 (90.52%)	3553 (90.43%)	0.897	3588 (90.08%)	0.526

χ2 test, Wilcoxon rank-sum test or Fisher’s exact test, as appropriate.

^*represents p value <0.05