Setting Time Limits on Opioid Prescriptions Might Reduce Misuse

By Robert Preidt HealthDay Reporter
HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, June 6, 2022 (HealthDay News) — Here’s a easy weapon to make use of in opposition to the opioid epidemic: New analysis finds that inserting cut-off dates on prescriptions for extremely addictive narcotic painkillers could cut back the chance of misuse.

In 2019, 1% of opioid prescriptions from U.S. dentists and surgeons had 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 University of Michigan analysis crew discovered.

Generalized to all surgical and opioid prescriptions within the United States, that proportion would translate into greater than 260,000 opioid prescriptions a 12 months which can be stuffed greater than a month after being written, based on the research printed on-line lately in JAMA Network Open .

“Our findings counsel that some sufferers use opioids from surgeons and dentists for a motive or throughout a time-frame apart from supposed by the prescriber,” stated lead research writer Dr. Kao-Ping Chua. He is a pediatrician and member of the college’s Child Health Evaluation and Research Center and Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation.

“These are each types of prescription opioid misuse, which in flip is a robust 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 in charge, based on 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 12 months after the prescription.

“It’s perplexing that states would permit managed substance prescriptions to be stuffed so lengthy after they’re written,” Chua stated.

Tighter state legal guidelines may assist forestall or cut back opioid abuse related to delayed filling of prescriptions, he advised.

The researchers pointed to Minnesota, which had a pointy drop in delayed allotting after it launched a regulation in July 2019 that prohibited opioid allotting greater than 30 days after a prescription was written.

Another possibility is for prescribers to incorporate directions on the prescription to not dispense opioids after a sure period of time, the research authors stated.

More info

There’s extra on prescription opioids on the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse.

SOURCE: University of Michigan, information launch, June 1, 2022