While the study, which analyzed hospitalizations under Medicare in 2011, did find that the hospitals that scored highest on pain control measures also had the highest rates of opioid prescribing, the link was quite modest and did not explain most of the variation between hospitals. The latest study on the matter shows that Vicodin or OxyContin (which can be addictive when used in long intervals of time) were freely prescribed by physicians. This could be a factor contributing to nation’s epidemic of prescription painkiller abuse and overdose deaths.
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Adult Medicaid patients in Tennessee from 1999 to 2012 had taken part in the study.
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, and colleagues investigated 1,055 adults in 2015 who had been prescribed opioids in the past year. In 2013 – the most recent year for which this data is available – the National Survey on Drug Use and Health estimated that number to be more than 80 percent. And the CDC issued guidelines this year to help steer primary care doctors into a safer direction when prescribing opioid medications.
Further, the study revealed that more than 60% of those with leftover opioids said they stored their drugs for future use, while those who forgot the warning to keep the drug from others’ hands were about 50%.
“It’s not clear why so many of our survey respondents reported having leftover medication”, says Kennedy-Hendricks, “but it could be that they were prescribed more medication than they needed”. A majority of heroin users have started out as opioid addicts.
“We’ve sounded the alarm over and over again”, Brummett said. “There have been efforts in recent years to expand drop-off sites and approved collectors, but perhaps it has not been enough”, said Kennedy-Hendricks.
Pain-relieving prescription opioids are the subject of a new original investigation and research letter published online by JAMA Internal Medicine.
“They should be a last resort, and particular care should be exercised for patients who are at cardiovascular risk”, said Ray, the lead author and a health policy professor at Vanderbilt University’s medical school. Nearly half of the study participants who had recently received their prescribed opioid painkillers said they don’t remember their doctors telling them not to share the drugs with anyone else as part of proper painkiller storage.
The House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate both passed opioid bills over the past several weeks.
The results were published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Lead author of the study, Wayne Ray, cautioned about abuse of drugs like heroin and overuse of prescription opioids such as hydrocodone, codeine, and morphine.
A study of 45,000 patients found that those using opioids were 64 per cent more likely to die within six months of starting a course of medication, compared to those taking other prescription painkillers.
Almost six in 10 said they either had excess pain medication or expected to have leftovers, the researchers found.
The researchers conclude that the widespread problem will need to be solved with a new approach, in which doctors curb overprescription while educating patients on how to dispose of leftover pills properly and store them safely away from others to use.
Other research has suggested that the drugs aren’t effective at reducing back pain and some of the other common conditions for which they’re often prescribed. Indeed, the pace of addiction and death is so fast in some locations that the statistics are more overwhelming than helpful.
But where PDMP use is voluntary, we know they rarely get used. “The complexity of the opioid crisis requires medical, legislative, behavioral, educational, and legal changes, and it requires that these changes be made in coordination with each other, at the same time”.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than 3 out of 5 overdose deaths involve an opioid. Of patients who shared their medication, 7.7 percent said they gave them to a friend and 13.7 percent said they gave them to a relative.
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“We were concerned that long-acting opioids might increase cardiovascular death risk, which is what we found”.
