HealthDay Reporter
MONDAY, June 6, 2022 (HealthDay Information) — Here is a easy weapon to make use of in opposition to the opioid epidemic: New analysis finds that inserting deadlines on prescriptions for extremely addictive narcotic painkillers might cut back the chance of misuse.
In 2019, 1% of opioid prescriptions from U.S. dentists and surgeons have been stuffed greater than 30 days after being issued, lengthy after the acute ache meant to be handled by the prescriptions ought to have subsided, the College of Michigan analysis workforce discovered.
Generalized to all surgical and opioid prescriptions in the US, that share would translate into greater than 260,000 opioid prescriptions a yr which might be stuffed greater than a month after being written, in keeping with the research printed on-line not too long ago in JAMA Community Open .
“Our findings counsel that some sufferers use opioids from surgeons and dentists for a motive or throughout a timeframe apart from supposed by the prescriber,” stated lead research creator Dr. Kao-Ping Chua. He’s a pediatrician and member of the college’s Baby Well being Analysis and Analysis Heart and Institute for Healthcare Coverage and Innovation.
“These are each types of prescription opioid misuse, which in flip is a powerful threat issue for opioid overdose,” Chua defined in a college information launch.
State legal guidelines on expiration intervals for managed substance prescriptions could also be partly guilty, in keeping with the researchers.
In 2019, 18 states permitted prescriptions for Schedule II opioids and different managed substances — these with the best threat of misuse — to be stuffed as much as six months after writing, and one other eight states allowed these medicine to be distributed as much as a yr after the prescription.
“It is perplexing that states would enable managed substance prescriptions to be stuffed so lengthy after they’re written,” Chua stated.
Tighter state legal guidelines might assist stop or cut back opioid abuse related to delayed filling of prescriptions, he steered.
The researchers pointed to Minnesota, which had a pointy drop in delayed dishing out after it launched a legislation in July 2019 that prohibited opioid dishing out greater than 30 days after a prescription was written.
An alternative choice is for prescribers to incorporate directions on the prescription to not dispense opioids after a sure period of time, the research authors stated.
Extra info
There’s extra on prescription opioids on the U.S. Nationwide Institute on Drug Abuse.
SOURCE: College of Michigan, information launch, June 1, 2022
