A new report suggests that more than 90 percent of patients who suffer a nonfatal overdose on prescription opioid painkillers are prescribed more pills following the overdose.
In certain situations, opioids can and do help prevent some of the pain caused by chronic conditions, but they are prescribed far too often by doctors who don’t take the time to get to the underlying cause of pain. The findings confirm this unfortunate trend.
The research, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, suggest that not enough is being done to help treat pain patients, and the patients are the ones suffering. According to the findings, 91 percent of pain patients who suffered an opioid-related nonfatal overdose were later prescribed more opioids, and opioid overdose survivors who continued to take medications were twice as likely to have another overdose within two years.
It’s saddening but not surprising that these findings have been published, especially when you consider that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently published an article saying opioid induced overdoses have reached epidemic levels. According to the CDC overdose deaths from prescription opioids and heorin have increased 200 percent since 2000.
Opioid Epidemic
Lead researcher Mark LaRochelle of the Boston Medical Center hopes the findings will be a wake up call for doctors who prescribe a lot of opioids.
“The intent of this study is not to point fingers but rather use the results to motivate physicians, policy makers and researchers to improve how we identify and treat patients at risk of opioid-related harms before they occur.”
For their study, researchers examined insurance claim data of more than 50 million people who filed a claim between 1999 and 2010. After narrowing their list down to 3,000 people who had suffered an opioid-induced nonfatal overdose on their prescription, researchers checked to see what care the patients received after their near death experience. Shockingly, nearly all of the survivors continued to receive opioid painkiller prescriptions, and, of the patients who remained on painkillers, 70 percent of them were prescribed medications from the same doctor who prescribed them the medications they eventually overdosed on. According to researchers, those doctors may have continued prescribing opioids after the overdose because they may not have known about the overdose, or they still felt the benefits outweighed the potential downfalls. They also believe some doctors may be ill-equipped to be making opioid judgments after an overdose.
The CDC issued guidelines suggesting that physicians should cut back on opioid prescriptions after a nonfatal overdose. Instead, they should pursue physical therapy or non-opioid painkillers.
Related source: ZME Science