127 research outputs found
Reality and responsibility revisited: Stakeholder accountability in the effort to develop safer opioids
This supplement is dedicated to an exploration of the science, potential utility, and the current state of abuse-deterrent formulations (ADF) of opioid analgesics. There are many stakeholders in the search for safer pain treatments in general, and safer opioid therapy in particular. Healthcare providers, patients, third-party payors, law enforcement and government regulators, the pharmaceutical industry, and the media all have a stake in seeing pain treated and addiction and overdose avoided. As it applies to ADFs, obviously not everyone has a stake in seeing that ADFs succeed commercially; but all stakeholders certainly have a responsibility to see that any potential advance, including ADFs, in protecting the public health is fairly and thoroughly evaluated. Particularly at a time of crisis. In this article, we revisit the framework used by Passik, Heit, and Kirsh (2006) to evaluate stakeholders’ responsibilities with regard to both the opioid abuse and chronic pain epidemics. After evaluating the present status of aspirations delineated over a decade ago, we discuss the updated roles and responsibilities of each stakeholder, with emphasis on the role of ADFs as this technology was unavailable when the original manuscript was written.</jats:p
No Good Deed: A Story of Medicine, Murder Accusations, and the Debate Over How We Die. Written by Lewis M. Cohen. HarperCollins, New York, 2010. No. of pages: 272. Price: $25.99 (US), £18.01 (UK). ISBN: 978-0061721762.
Nonmedical Prescription Opioid Use for the Self-treatment of Pain in Young Adults: A National Shame
Report of meeting fifth annual advanced palliative medicine course for physicians. Poznan, Poland, May 22–26, 1995
Psychological Variables Potentially Implicated in Opioid-Related Mortality as Observed in Clinical Practice
Reported lifetime aberrant drug-taking behaviors are predictive of current substance use and mental health problems in primary care patients.
BACKGROUND: The aim of this report is to determine the frequency of aberrant drug behaviors and their relationship to substance abuse disorders in a large primary sample of patients receiving opioids for chronic pain. METHODS: The data utilized for this report was obtained from 904 chronic pain patients receiving opioid therapy from their primary care physician. A questionnaire was developed based on 12 aberrant drug behaviors reported in the clinical literature. The diagnosis of a current substance use disorder was determined using Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-Fourth Edition(DSM-IV) criteria. RESULTS: The average duration of chronic pain in the sample was 16 years and for opioid therapy, 6.4 years. Of the patients, 80.5% reported one or more lifetime aberrant drug behaviors. The most frequent behaviors reported included early refills (41.7%), increase dose without physician consent (35.7%), and felt intoxicated from opioids (32.2%). Only 1.1% of subjects with 1-3 aberrant behaviors (N = 464, 51.2%) met DSM-IV criteria for current opioid dependence compared with 9.9% of patients with four or more behaviors (N = 264, 29.3%). Persons with positive urine toxicology tests for cocaine were 14 times more likely to report four or more behaviors than no behaviors (14.1% vs 1.1%). A logistic model found that subjects who reported four or more aberrant behaviors were more likely to have a current substance use disorder (odds ratio [OR] 10.14; 3.72, 27.64), a positive test for cocaine (odds ratio [OR] 3.01; 1.74, 15.4), an Addiction Severity Index (ASI) psychiatric composite score >0.5 (OR 2.38; 1.65, 3.44), male gender (OR 2.08: 1.48, 2.92), and older age (OR 0.69; 0.59, 0.81) compared with subjects with three or fewer behaviors. Pain levels, employment status, and morphine equivalent dose do not enter the model. CONCLUSIONS: Patients who report four or more aberrant drug behaviors are associated with a current substance use disorder and illicit drug use, whereas subjects with up to three aberrant behaviors have a very low probability of a current substance abuse disorder. Four behaviors--oversedated oneself, felt intoxicated, early refills, increase dose on own--appear useful as screening questions to predict patients at greatest risk for a current substance use disorders
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