References

Gliszczynski K, Hindmarsh A, Ellis S, Ling J, Anderson KN. Online education for safer opioid prescribing in hospitals-lessons learnt from the Opioid Use Change (OUCh) project. Postgrad Med J.. 2023; 99:(1167)32-36 https://doi.org/10.1093/postmj/qgac005

McAuley A, Fraser R, Glancy M Mortality among individuals prescribed opioid-agonist therapy in Scotland, UK, 2011-20: a national retrospective cohort study. Lancet Public Health. 2023; 8:(7)e484-e493 https://doi.org/10.1016/S2468-2667(23)00082-8

Roberts AO, Richards GC. Is England facing an opioid epidemic?. Br J Pain. 2023; 17:(3)320-324 https://doi.org/10.1177/20494637231160684

Opioids and prescribing

02 July 2023
Volume 5 · Issue 7

Abstract

Deborah Robertson provides an overview of recently published articles that may be of interest to non-medical prescribers. Should you wish to look at any of the papers in more detail, a full reference is provided

Last month, the research round-up provided you with an overview of articles looking at statin prescribing practice. This month, we will look at issues around opioid prescribing. The first article looks at the mortality of people prescribed opioid agonist therapy in Scotland. The second article looks at whether England is facing an opioid epidemic and the final paper looks at how opioid prescribing can be affected by online education.

This retrospective cohort study, published in the journal Lancet Public Health online sought to identify mortality amongst people prescribed opioid agonist therapy in Scotland between the years 2011 and 2020. The article starts by covering the scale of drug related deaths in Scotland and outlines that in this part of the UK, drug-related deaths are 3.7 times higher than the rest of the UK as a whole and higher than most internationally available country figures indicating a particular problem in Scotland.

The study aimed to investigate whether opioid agonist therapy was protective against drug-related deaths and to look at this effect over time. The study encompassed all individuals identified in Scotland between 2011 and 2020 who had been prescribed opioid agonist drugs on at least one occasion. The researchers then calculated drug related mortality rates and a regressional statistical analysis to estimate trends over time. In total, 46 453 individuals were identified as having been prescribed opioid agonist therapy.

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