Articles: opioid-analgesics.
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Pharmacoepidemiol Drug Saf · Apr 2021
Chronic prescription opioid use in pregnancy in the United States.
To evaluate chronic opioid utilization patterns during pregnancy using nationwide data from publicly and commercially insured women. ⋯ Despite growing awareness of the risks associated with chronic opioid use and emphasis on improving opioid prescription patterns, prevalence of chronic use in pregnancy among publicly insured women nearly doubled from 2008-2014 and was 5-fold more common when compared to commercially insured women. Findings call for the development of guidelines on chronic pain management during pregnancy.
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Drug Alcohol Depend · Apr 2021
"Doctor and pharmacy shopping": A fading signal for prescription opioid use monitoring?
The term "doctor and pharmacy shopping" colloquially describes patients with high multiple provider episodes (MPEs)-a threshold count of distinct prescribers and/or pharmacies involved in prescription fulfillment. Opioid-related MPEs are implicated in the global opioid crisis and heavily monitored by government databases such as U.S. state prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs). We applied a widely-used MPE definition to examine U.S. trends from a large, commercially-insured population from 2010 to 2017. Further, we examined the proportion of enrollees identified as "doctor shoppers" with evidence of a cancer diagnosis to examine the risk of false positives. ⋯ Opioid "shopping" flags are a long-standing but rapidly fading PDMP signal. To avoid unintended consequences, such as identifying legitimate medical encounters requiring high healthcare utilization or opioid treatment, while maintaining vigilance, more nuanced and sophisticated approaches are needed.
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Codeine is one of the most commonly used opioid analgesics. Significant codeine-related morbidity and mortality prompted regulatory responses, with the up-scheduling of codeine combination analgesics to prescription-only medicines implemented in Australia in February 2018. This study investigated the impact of codeine up-scheduling on the number of codeine and other (noncodeine) prescription opioid-related emergency department (ED) presentations in a large metropolitan tertiary hospital. ⋯ Noncodeine prescription opioid-related (B = -1.90, P = 0.446) and ED presentations overall (B = -118.04, P = 0.140) remained unchanged immediately post-up-scheduling, with a significant change in trend from upward to downward for noncodeine (B = -0.76; P = 0.002) and ED presentations overall (B = -19.34, P = 0.022). A significant reduction of 4.58 (B = -4.58, P = 0.009) in codeine presentations involving subsequent hospital admission immediately post-up-scheduling was found; but no immediate reduction in codeine-related suicide-related overdoses, length of inpatient stay, or re-presentations (P > 0.0125; adjusted for multiple comparisons). Restricting supply of codeine to prescription-only may have resulted in less harmful codeine-related use in the community, without a corresponding immediate decrease in other opioid-related harms.
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Drug Alcohol Depend · Apr 2021
Behavioral economic demand in opioid treatment: Predictive validity of hypothetical purchase tasks for heroin, cocaine, and benzodiazepines.
Behavioral economics provides a framework in which to understand choice and motivation in the field of substance use disorders. Hypothetical purchase tasks (HPT), which indicate the amount or probability of purchasing substances at different prices, have been suggested as a clinical tool that can help predict future substance use and identify targets for intervention. ⋯ This report provides evidence that demand assessment is predictive of future substance use and could help guide treatment planning at intake. These results also demonstrated that the ZBEn model provides good fits to consumption data and allows for sensitive statistical analyses.
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The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted medical care, impacting prescribing of opioid analgesics and buprenorphine for opioid use disorder. Understanding these patterns can help address barriers to care. ⋯ In this cross-sectional study, existing patients receiving opioid analgesics and buprenorphine for opioid use disorder generally maintained access to these medications during the COVID-19 pandemic. Opioid prescriptions for opioid-naive patients decreased briefly and then rebounded, while initiation of buprenorphine remained at a low rate through August 2020. Reductions in treatment entry may be associated with increased overdose deaths.