Abstract text (incl. figure legends and references)

Background:

Headache secondary to medication use is a well-known entity. However, which medications are most likely to cause headaches on a global scale is unknown.

Objective:

This project seeks to identify the top thirty drugs most commonly associated with headaches in the Food and Drug Administration Adverse Event Reporting System (FAERS), as well as their respective reporting odds ratio (ROR).

Methods:

We extracted case identifiers (IDs), adverse events (AEs), and attributed medications for entries in the FAERS database from July 1, 2018, to March 31, 2020. Entries were split into two files based on whether each contained the word "headache(s)." Non-medication words are excluded. Medications were ranked by frequency of occurrence in the database, and their ROR values were calculated.

Results:

We extracted 2,673,081 entries, of which 86,086 contain the word "headache(s)." The thirty most frequently appearing medication were then ranked by ROR value and a 95% confidence interval. Immunosuppressants, antivirals, as well as pulmonary hypertension medication classes were most commonly associated with headache.

Conclusion:

Our study offers a potential list of the medication classes commonly associated with iatrogenic headaches.