This article is more than 5 years old. Information may no longer be current.
Pain severity, pain self-efficacy cited as predictors of prescription opioid use after musculoskeletal injury
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts
Results from this study linked pain severity and pain self-efficacy with prescription opioid use 4 months after musculoskeletal injury.
“Pain severity and poor sense of pain control, not psychological distress, are the main factors associated with prolonged opioid use following musculoskeletal trauma and surgery,” Brittany N. Rosenbloom, PhD, a study co-author and candidate in clinical psychology at York University in Toronto, told Healio.com/Orthopedics.
Study co-author Joel Katz, Ph D, distinguished research professor of psychology from York University and Canada research chair in health psychology, added, “This paper sets the record straight. Pain severity is the main driver of opioid use in these patients. Psychological factors come into play as time from injury and surgery progresses, but even so, pain severity is a better predictor of opioid use than is psychopathology in contrast to what others have claimed.”
Rosenbloom, Katz and colleagues performed an observational, prospective, longitudinal study of 122 patients who had sustained a musculoskeletal injury and were treated at one of two level 1 trauma centers. Assessments were completed 14 days of injury (T1) and 4 months after injury (T2). Investigators used questionnaires and chart reviews to evaluate measures of pain, opioid consumption, pain disability, anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress symptoms and injury-related information.
Results showed 94.26% of patients were prescribed opioids for pain relief. Investigators found 35.25% of patients reported they took prescription opioids to manage their pain at T2. Investigators found T2 pain severity and T2 pain self-efficacy significantly correlated with T2 prescription opioid use after controlling for age, sex, injury severity, T1 pain severity and T2 depression symptoms. – by Monica Jaramillo
Disclosures: The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
Click Here to Manage Email Alerts