• Am J Prev Med · Feb 2025

    Gabapentinoid Dispensing to Children and Adolescents in the United States.

    • Andrew Terranella, Xinyi Jiang, Ceciley Bly, Gery Guy, and Justine W Welsh.
    • Division of Overdose Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, CDC, Atlanta, Georgia. Electronic address: Aqt1@cdc.gov.
    • Am J Prev Med. 2025 Feb 3.

    IntroductionGabapentin and pregabalin (gabapentinoids), are increasingly prescribed to children and adolescents off-label for various conditions, despite limited data and concerns for adverse outcomes including misuse and overdose. The extent of gabapentinoid use in children and adolescents is unknown.MethodsNationally representative retail pharmacy dispensing data from IQVIA, was used to describe trends in gabapentinoid dispensing to children and adolescents aged ≤19 years from April 2017 through September 2023. The analysis was performed in 2024. Trends by patient age and sex, and by prescriber specialty are presented along with median quarterly rates (MQR) and quarterly percentage changes (QPC).ResultsOver the study period, the gabapentinoid dispensing rate was 4534.9/100,000 individuals. The MQR was 168.9/100,000. Between Q2 2017 and Q2 2021, the QPC was not significant (QPC=0.08; 95%CI: -2.9, 0.8) but became significant between Q2 2021 and Q3 2023 (QPC: 2.8; 95% CI: 1.2, 8.4). Dispensing rates were highest for adolescents aged 10-19 years (MQR = 267.3/100,000) and females (MQR=187.6/100,000). Nurse practitioners prescribed the highest percent of gabapentinoids dispensed (17.8%). The total number of gabapentinoids dispensed increased from 2018 to 2022 across all specialties except psychiatry (-14.8%) and internal medicine (-9.2%), with nurse practitioners (48.2%), surgical specialists (48.0%), and addiction medicine specialists (51.2%) representing the largest increases.ConclusionsGabapentinoid receipt among US children and adolescents has increased. Future research can explore factors associated with prescribing including changing epidemiology of pain and psychiatric diagnoses in children and adolescents. Prescribing clinicians should carefully consider the potential risks and benefits of gabapentinoids in clinical practice.Copyright © 2025. Published by Elsevier Inc.

      Pubmed     Copy Citation     Plaintext  

      Add institutional full text...

    Notes

     
    Knowledge, pearl, summary or comment to share?
    300 characters remaining
    help        
    You can also include formatting, links, images and footnotes in your notes
    • Simple formatting can be added to notes, such as *italics*, _underline_ or **bold**.
    • Superscript can be denoted by <sup>text</sup> and subscript <sub>text</sub>.
    • Numbered or bulleted lists can be created using either numbered lines 1. 2. 3., hyphens - or asterisks *.
    • Links can be included with: [my link to pubmed](http://pubmed.com)
    • Images can be included with: ![alt text](https://bestmedicaljournal.com/study_graph.jpg "Image Title Text")
    • For footnotes use [^1](This is a footnote.) inline.
    • Or use an inline reference [^1] to refer to a longer footnote elseweher in the document [^1]: This is a long footnote..

    hide…