Table 2.

Cohort of new Initiators of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors and beta-blockers (matched)

	Primary Analysis				Covariate Balance
Characteristic	Angiotensin-converting enzyme Inhibitors		Beta-blockers
	N	%	N	%	Absolute Difference	Standardized Difference
Patients	1,309,104	59.2%	1,309,104	78.2%
Events while on therapy	3,311	0.3%	988	0.1%
Person-time at risk (days)	183.8	263.7	151.8	238.9
Patient Characteristics
Gender (F)	723,955	55.3%	689,617	52.7%	2.6	0.1
Mean age (std dev)	54.1	13.1	54.4	14.9	−0.3	0.0
Recorded History of:
Allergic reactions	137,920	10.5%	134,933	10.3%	0.2	0.0
Diabetes	150,036	11.5%	150,551	11.5%	0.0	0.0
Heart failure	35,302	2.7%	38,966	3.0%	−0.3	0.0
Ischemic heart diseases	102,200	7.8%	106,786	8.2%	−0.4	0.0
NSAID use	191,798	14.7%	189,612	14.5%	0.2	0.0
Health Service Utilization Intensity:	Mean	Standard deviation	Mean	Standard deviation
Number of generics	3.7	3.7%	3.6	3.6%	0.0	0.0
Number of filled prescriptions	8.1	10.2%	8.0	9.9%	0.1	0.0
Number of inpatient hospital encounters	0.1	0.5%	0.1	0.5%	0.0	0.0
Number of non-acute institutional encounters	0.1	0.7%	0.1	0.7%	0.0	0.0
Number of emergency room encounters	0.3	0.8%	0.3	0.8%	0.0	0.0
Number of ambulatory encounters	5.6	7.3%	5.6	6.6%	0.0	0.0
Number of other ambulatory encounters	1.2	2.9%	1.3	3.0%	0.0	0.0