Opioid Prescriptions for Chronic Pain and Overdose - Research Paper Example

The authors want to use this study to understand if there is a correlation between prescribed opioid therapy and opioid-related overdose. The authors have made it known that no such study has been previously undergone that evaluates the overdose risk in patients receiving prescribed opioids for chronic pain, which is why this study needed to be undergone. This study was conducted at Group Health Cooperative in Seattle, Washington. The patients involved in the study were 9940 people who had received three or more opioid prescriptions no more than ninety days prior to the study for chronic noncancer pain between the years of 1997 and 2005.

These participants had to be at least eighteen years of age, if not older, and had to have been diagnosed with any of the eligible pains, which consisted of back or neck pain, menstrual pain, headache, abdominal pain or hernia, osteoarthritis, and fractures, contusions, or injuries. Anybody seeking to participate in this study that had a pain other than what was eligible was dismissed from the study. The participants in the study also had to be enrolled at Group Health Cooperative at least two hundred and seventy days prior to the onset of the study. . Further automated health care data was used to obtain information about the patient, anything from their personal background to their pain diagnosis.

Additional measurements were made in regard to the amount of sedatives that were dispensed to patients. Other medical records were perused to identify potential overdoses of opioids; reviews of medical records were also undergone to classify and validate cases of overdose. A Cox proportional hazards model was implemented into the study to determine the risk for overdose based on each individual and their average daily dose of opioids. Simple observation was also undertaken, which involved monitoring the participants of the study and the amount of opioids that were to take each day and their reaction to the medication.

It was noted the previous opioid use prior to any given day during the study. Observations were used until individual patients became disqualified from the study, either from disenrollment from the facility or from their health care provider, their first overdose, death, or the end of the observational period. The authors made it known that after the initial ninety days of the study, the patients were followed for an additional forty-two months to ensure complete results and to make sure that nothing was overlooked.

Of the original 9940 people that were involved in the study, 61% had complete follow-up, most of which lasted until the end of the study period, 32% left Group Health Cooperative and were therefore unable to finish out the study, and 7% of the participants had died. The introduction of the the results section of the article also went into detail about the mean age of the participants and the mean dosage of daily opioids. A table was provided to