Credit score: Pixabay from Pexels
Opioid prescriptions within the emergency division (ED) have been related to small will increase in later opioid prescriptions and hospital admissions, discovered new analysis printed within the Canadian Medical Affiliation Journal.
To grasp the connection between opioid prescribing within the ED and subsequent hurt, researchers checked out opioid prescribing in any respect Alberta EDs from 2010 to 2020. Of the greater than 13 million visits, 689 074 sufferers (5.3%) crammed an opioid prescription.
The researchers discovered that opioid prescriptions didn’t improve the chance of loss of life or overdose, however that opioid-treated sufferers have been extra doubtless than untreated controls to require hospital admission (16.4% v. 15.1%) or to obtain extra opioid prescriptions (4.5% v. 3.3%) within the yr following the ED go to.
“Emergency physicians face growing pressure to curtail opioid prescribing but must manage severe pain and treat opioid-tolerant patients who can no longer access opioids from their physicians,” writes Dr. Grant Innes, professor of emergency medication, Cumming Faculty of Drugs, College of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, with co-authors. “There is little research to guide them.”
The researchers concluded that though single opioid prescriptions aren’t threat free, the chance of hurt is low and unlikely to outweigh the good thing about treating extreme ache. Their findings additionally present that affected person traits affect threat and that opposed outcomes are extra doubtless with opioid-naive sufferers, older sufferers, sufferers with a number of well being circumstances, and frequent ED customers.
“Physicians should understand the concept of patient-specific incremental risks when prescribing opioids for acute pain and prescribe cautiously within high-risk groups,” the authors conclude.
Additionally they recommend that future analysis ought to examine the consequences of various opioid medication, which is probably not equal, and establish well being circumstances the place opioid threat is kind of extreme.
“Research and guidance in this area is long overdue, and only filling this research gap will allow acute pain prescribers and their patients to consider how best to ameliorate pain while minimizing potential harms related to opioid prescriptions,” writes Dr. Donna Reynolds, a household doctor and performing co-chair of the Canadian Job Pressure on Preventive Well being Care, with co-authors in a associated commentary.
Extra info:
Impact of emergency division opioid prescribing on well being outcomes, Canadian Medical Affiliation Journal (2025). DOI: 10.1503/cmaj.241542
Associated commentary: Canadian Medical Affiliation Journal (2025). www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.250094.
Offered by
Canadian Medical Affiliation Journal
Quotation:
Opioid prescriptions within the ED linked to small will increase in future opioid use, hospitalizations (2025, February 10)
retrieved 10 February 2025
from https://medicalxpress.com/information/2025-02-opioid-prescriptions-ed-linked-small.html
This doc is topic to copyright. Other than any honest dealing for the aim of personal research or analysis, no
half could also be reproduced with out the written permission. The content material is offered for info functions solely.
