Prescription pain medication abuse declining in US
Prescription pain medication abuse has declined in recent years, according to research presented at the Anesthesiology 2020 annual meeting.
“Prior research has shown slight reductions in abuse rates, but our analysis shows we're tracking statistically significant year-to-year declines in abuse, indicating that the decrease is not an anomaly and truly represents a trend in falling prescription drug abuse levels,” Mario Moric, MS, lead author of the study and a biostatistician at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois, said in a press release. “We believe the message of the dangers of opioid use without supervision of a medical professional is finally getting through and changing people's mindset and behavior.”
Moric and colleagues evaluated data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health on the type and rate of prescription pain medication (PPM) abuse by examining survey questions on illicit use of PPM in the last year.
Because of a redesign of the survey in 2015, researchers compared survey results from 2002 through 2014 and from 2015 through 2018.
Moric and colleagues found that the rate of PPM abuse was steady from 2002 to 2009. They also identified a sharp decline in PPM abuse in 2010 followed by an increase in 2012 and a steady decline from 2012 to 2014.
The only significant declines in PPM abuse occurred from 2002 to 2013 and 2014, as well as from 2015 to 2016, 2017 and 2018, according to the researchers.
They reported that 4.9% of survey respondents said they had abused PPMs in the last year, while in 2018, 3.7% said they abused these medications. According to the press release, this represented a 26% decrease in PPM abuse.
“Pain medications such as opioids are an important resource in the treatment and care of patients, but they are not a cure-all,” Asokumar Buvanendran, MD, co-author of the study, chair of the American Society of Anesthesiologists Committee on Pain Medicine and executive vice chair of anesthesiology at Rush University Medical Center, said in a press release.
“Since opioids have risks and can be highly addictive, they should be used only under the supervision of a physician who can consider their safety and how the medication will affect a patient over time,” he added. “Prescribers and patients are now better armed with the information they need to make educated choices in pain management.”
References:
Moric M, et al. Abstract 7382. Presented at: Anesthesiology 2020; October 2-5, 2020. (Virtual)