Low Risk of Producing an Opioid Use Disorder in Primary Care by Prescribing Opioids to Prescreened Patients with Chronic Noncancer Pain.

Low Risk of Producing an Opioid Use Disorder in Primary Care by Prescribing Opioids to Prescreened Patients with Chronic Noncancer Pain.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28379504

Objective. :

To examine the risk of developing aberrant behaviors that might lead to a substance use disorder (addiction) when prescribing opioids for the relief of chronic noncancer pain in primary care settings.

Design. :

Longitudinal, prospective, descriptive design with repeated measures.

Setting. :

Private community-based internal medicine and family medicine clinics.

Subjects. :

Patients with chronic musculoskeletal pain.

Methods. :

Standardized measures of patient status (pain, functional impairment, psychiatric disorders, family history) and treatments provided, urine drug monitoring, and medical chart audits (presence of aberrant drug-related behaviors) were obtained in a cohort of 180 patients at the time of initiating opioids for chronic noncancer pain and at three, six, and 12 months thereafter.

Results. :

Over the 12-month follow-up period, subjects demonstrated stable, mild to moderate levels of depression (PHQ-9 scores ranging from 9.43 to 10.92), mild anxiety (BAI scores ranging from 11.80 to 14.67), minimal aberrant drug-related behaviors as assessed by chart reviews, and a low percentage of illicit drug use as revealed by results of urine drug monitoring. Less than 5% of our study population revealed any evidence of substance use disorder.

Conclusions. :

This prospective study suggests that patients without a recent or prior history of substance use disorder who were prescribed primarily short-acting opioids in low doses for chronic noncancer pain have a low risk for developing a substance use disorder. This finding supports the importance of prescreening patients being considered for opioid therapy and that prescription of opioids for noncancer pain may carry a lower risk of abuse in selected populations such as in private, community-based practices.

3 Responses

  1. What is our country doing to us ? I go over this in my head. What can I do. The only thing that has ever made any since to me was told to me by a person who has always been good to all of us. VOTE the bums out !!!
    Have all you friends get together have a picnic form some letters , send some emails call them tell them what you are going to do if they are not on board with it. Send to all politicians. Oh bring some cookies to. The next week get together for another lunch. Make it fun. I think we can do it. It has been a long road we are getting tired …so we can take care of each other. We have to remember to laugh with each other. We can do this…..I wish you were all well.

    Sandra

  2. To who ever, please feel free to publicly post and To who this my story of this horrible malady and the the Hell the now uninformed Public and some of the Media are putting us legitimate Chronic Pain Sufferers through! It is no more than local emotional Abuse ( and border line Domestic Emotional Terrorism )!on a scale with only Biblical proportions!To the Editor and Associates I have taken this opportunity to share my heartbreaking story in hopes these witch hunting Opiate ill informed skeptics will read and understand that we as Millions Of Legitimate Chronic Pain Sufferers would have no life without Medically prescribed Opiates by a physicians care and strictly monitored monthly urine and blood test. Please remember that An Opinion Before A Thorough Investigation Is The Epitome Of Ignorance! And that a little more compassion from the Medical Field and its representatives could have saved my beautiful Stepdaughters life. Let me say this! A person who has a addictive personality will abuse anything that helps them feel better. I have taken Oxycontin for 12 years , I have had 20 major surgery’s in 9 years. I have so much physical pain I can not even get out of bed with out pain meds and when I run out I run out and just lay in bed praying the Lord relieve me of this horrible condition and I pray God you pain med skeptics never go through what I go through everyday of my life when the only thing you have to do is threaten what help I get, Shame on them! There will always be drug abuse and as the so called war on drugs has failed all this will! All you do is stoke and aid the drug pushers business to knew heights in the Black Market of Heroin while trying to deprive folks as me to this horrible movement! My Stepdaughter committed suicide 4 years ago because of being treated like a drug addict by her family and doctors when all along she suffered from Lupus and Fibromyalgia which I believe was brought on by a deadly car crash at 18 , she told me between that which I was being put through and what they were putting her through she was not going to be able to live her life in such a hell brought on by people like the Biased Uniformed Skeptics that are on a witch hunt to out law Opiates and pain meds that give us some sort of a life . As a retired Police officer and worked indirectly close to the DEA, you people do not have a clue how thrilled you are making the illegal opiate trade and think of my Late Stepdaughter as you continue on with this 2017 Version of the ( 1940s Propaganda Film named REEFER MADNESS )movement to outlaw opiates! Just like the slaughter of children at Sandy Hook if there would have just been gun laws , my God they were Gun Laws , the guns that murdered all those 20 children were all registered and owned by a school teacher! You fight Drug Addiction in Elementary education by teaching all children the dangers of Booze and Tobacco which if these witch hunters want for us to know the real truth but they do not. I miss my Stepdaughter so much and some of us will continue on the fight to protect our right to feel better and function without fear of these witch hunters trying to convince us to commit suicide . And they are trying to do exactly THAT and are now being successful in this under the table practice of Human Genocide!

    • I am forwarding ,”Wayne,” this article w/your comment to my MEDICAL BOARDS,, here is wisco,,,,,for many of us,,have felt like your daughter,,,,,,,,,but they refuse to even document our dead as ,”death due to FORCED physical pain,,via denial of access to effective medical care”,,,,again,,sorry for your loss,,,truly,,,we’ve all been there or ARE there,,,,maryw

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