Pain medicine : the official journal of the American Academy of Pain Medicine
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Randomized Controlled Trial
Comparative Analgesic Efficacy of Oxycodone/Acetaminophen vs Codeine/Acetaminophen for Short-Term Pain Management Following ED Discharge.
To test the hypothesis that oxycodone/acetaminophen provides analgesia superior to codeine/acetaminophen following emergency department (ED) discharge. ⋯ Our hypothesis that oxycodone/acetaminophen provides analgesia superior to codeine/acetaminophen was rejected. Although pain within each group was reduced by more than half, the between-group difference was not significant. Pending independent validation, these unexpected findings suggest that codeine/acetaminophen, a Schedule III agent, may be a clinically reasonable outpatient opioid alternative to oxycodone/acetaminophen, a more tightly restricted Schedule II agent thought to be more prone to misuse.