Abstract: | Accepted: 11 January 2023 DOI: 10.1002/jmv.28496 RESEARCH ARTICLE Colchicine and risk of hospitalization due to COVID‐19: A population‐based study María Sáenz‐Aldea1 | Ángel Salgado‐Barreira2,3,4 | Margarita Taracido Trunk2,3,4 María Piñeiro‐Lamas4 | Maria T. Herdeiro5 | Manuel Portela‐Romero6,7 | Marc Saez8,9 1 | | Adolfo Figueiras2,3,4 Centro de Salud Dávila, Santander, Spain 2 Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health, University of Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain 3 Abstract Colchicine is one of the most widely studied and best‐known anti‐inflammatory treatments. This study aimed to assess the effect of colchicine on risk of Institute of Health Research of Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain hospitalization due to COVID‐19; and its effect on susceptibility to and severity of 4 the virus in patients with COVID‐19. We carried out a population‐based case‐ Consortium for Biomedical Research in Epidemiology & Public Health (CIBER en Epidemiología y Salud Pública‐CIBERESP), University of Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain 5 Department of Medical Sciences, iBiMED‐ Institute of Biomedicine, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, Portugal 6 Centro de Salud Concepción Arenal, Santiago de Compostela, Spain control study. The following groups were applied: (1) to assess risk of hospitalization, cases were patients with a positive PCR who were hospitalized due to COVID‐19, and controls without a positive PCR; (2) to assess susceptibility to COVID‐19, cases were patients with a positive PCR (hospitalized and non‐hospitalized), and the same controls; (3) to determine potential severity, cases were subjects with COVID‐19 hospitalized, and controls patients with COVID‐19 nonhospitalised. Different electronic, linked, administrative health and clinical databases were used to extract 7 Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Enfermedades Cardiovasculares (CIBERCV), Santiago de Compostela, Spain 8 data on sociodemographic variables, comorbidities, and medications dispensed. The study covered 3060 subjects with a positive PCR who were hospitalized, 26 757 Research Group on Statistics, Econometrics and Health (GRECS), University of Girona, Girona, Spain with a positive PCR who were not hospitalized, and 56 785 healthy controls. After 9 colchicine did not modify risk of hospitalization due to COVID‐19 (adjusted odd ratio CIBER of Epidemiology and Public Health (CIBERESP), Madrid, Spain Correspondence Ángel Salgado‐Barreira, Dto. de Medicina Preventiva y Salud Pública, Facultad de Medicina, c/San Francisco s/n, 15786 Santiago de Compostela (A Coruña), Spain. Email: angel.salgado.barreira@usc.es Funding information Instituto de Salud Carlos III adjustment for sociodemographic variables, comorbidities and other treatments, [OR] 1.08 [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.76−1.53]), patients' susceptibility to contracting the disease (adjusted OR 1.12 (95% CI 0.91−1.37)) or the severity of the infection (adjusted OR 1.03 [95% CI 0.67−1.59]). Our results would neither support the prophylactic use of colchicine for prevention of the infection or hospitalization in any type of patient, nor justify the withdrawal of colchicine treatment due to a higher risk of contracting COVID‐19. KEYWORDS colchicine, COVID‐19, hospitalization, susceptibility 1 | INTRODUCTION availability of vaccines.1 The vaccine hesitancy,2 low vaccination rates in some countries, 3 it remains of great..