Pharmacoepidemiology and drug safety
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Pharmacoepidemiol Drug Saf · Jan 2014
Increasing trends in Schedule II opioid use and doctor shopping during 1999-2007 in California.
To examine the age and gender-specific trends of Schedule II opioid use among California residents, with special reference to multiple provider users (doctor shoppers). ⋯ Age and gender differences in opioid use were relatively small, whereas the trends for use of opioids and multiple providers grew at a disquieting rate.
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Pharmacoepidemiol Drug Saf · Jan 2014
Using poison center exposure calls to predict prescription opioid abuse and misuse-related emergency department visits.
Prescription drug abuse is a critical problem in the USA and has been linked to more deaths than automobile accidents. Despite this growing epidemic, the USA lacks a timely early warning system. Poison centers (PCs) have the potential to act as sentinel reporting entities for prescription drug abuse and misuse due to near-real-time data reporting and abundant coverage in the USA. ⋯ Data on prescription opioid drug abuse from the RADARS System PC program correlates well with emergency room data from DAWN. Due to timeliness of data, geographic coverage and strong associations with other warning systems, PC data can be used for sentinel reporting on prescription drug abuse and misuse in the USA.