Predictors of oversedation in hospitalized patients.

Purpose: Results of a study to determine demographic and clinical characteristics predictive of oversedation and potential opioid-induced respiratory depression (OIRD) in hospitalized patients are reported.

Methods: In a retrospective case-controlled study, an incident reporting database was searched to identify cases of in-hospital oversedation; to form the control group, patients who did not experience an oversedation event while hospitalized were sampled in reverse chronological order until the desired total sample size ( = 225) was obtained. An allocation ratio of 2:1 was specified to adjust for case variability.