Reining in opioid overprescribing while maintaining evidence-based clinical guidance for pain management is the challenge addressed in a consensus study report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NAS).
Framing Opioid Prescribing Guidelines for Acute Pain: Developing the Evidence provides an analytic framework and an evidence evaluation framework to help medical professional societies, health care organizations, and local, state and national agencies address the opioid crisis. Information is intended to inform the groups as they develop clinical practice guidelines for prescribing opioids to manage acute pain. The Food and Drug Administration requested the NAS report.
The report addresses pediatric patients as an important vulnerable population. Opioid exposure has led to a dramatic rise in substance abuse rates and poisoning hospitalizations among children.
The latest Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance Survey confirmed the rise in substance abuse rates, noting that 14% of adolescents have reported misusing opioids. The survey also linked opioid misuse among adolescents to a range of risky behaviors, including risky driving, violence, risky sex, substance use and suicide attempts.
Opioid prescriptions began to rise in 2006 when health care providers wrote 72.4 prescriptions per 100 patients. Prescriptions rose 3% each year until 2010 but are declining.
On average, patients use only half of their prescriptions after surgery, and leftover medication is subject to misuse.
Read the full report at http://bit.ly/37Hqo8Z. Access the AAP Gateway Anesthesiology/Pain Management collection at http://bit.ly/2N1vPHW.
