Yao and colleagues published their research in the Annals of Internal Medicine in July 2020, looking at the association of short course oral corticosteroid therapy with severe adverse events.

Clinical guidelines recommend short course oral steroids for exacerbations of a number of chronic diseases such as asthma, rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease. Some studies have also noted that oral steroids are frequently used for upper respiratory tract infections.

The data set used was the Taiwanese National Health Insurance Research Database: 25% of the 15.9 million adults in that population had received at least one short course of oral steroids in the 3 years of the study period. Skin disorders and respiratory tract infections were the indications for 59% of the steroid courses prescribed.

Prescriptions for steroid bursts were associated with a 1.80-fold increased risk for GI bleeding, 1.99-fold for sepsis and 2.37-fold for heart failure within 30 days of initiating treatment. The authors recommended that prescribers should take into account the risk benefit ratio before prescribing steroid bursts.

You can see the full abstract here.