학술논문
Frequency of Early Refills for Opioids in the United States
Original Research Article
Original Research Article
Document Type
Report
Author
Source
Pain Medicine. September 2020, Vol. 21 Issue 9, p1818, 7 p.
Subject
Language
English
ISSN
1526-2375
Abstract
Background With the increase in opioid abuse and deaths due to overdose in recent decades [1-4], the United States Food and Drug Administration (US FDA) approved the extended-release and long-acting [...]
Objective. Refilling an opioid prescription early is an important risk factor of prescription opioid abuse and misuse; we aimed to understand the scope of this behavior. This study was conducted to quantify the prevalence and distribution of early refills among patients prescribed opioids. Methods. We conducted a retrospective cohort study utilizing dispensed prescription records. Patients filling one or more prescription opioids were identified and followed for one year. Early refills were defined as having a second prescription filled >15% early relative to the days' supply of the previous prescription for the same opioid (according to the National Drug Code [NDC]). The distribution of the number of early refills and patient characteristics were assessed. Results. A total of 60.6 million patients met the study criteria; 28.8% had two or more opioid prescriptions for the same opioid during follow-up. Less than 3% of all patients receiving an opioid had an early refill. Approximately 10% of those with two or more opioid prescriptions for the same drug had an early refill. For patients with multiple fills (N = 1.5 million with extended-release long-acting [ER/LA] opioids; N = 17.1 million with immediate-release short-acting [IR/SA] opioids), early refills were more common among patients with an ER/LA opioid (18.5%) compared with an IR/SA opioid (8.7%). Three-quarters of patients with an early refill had only one (70.9% and 78.4% for ER/LA and IR/SA, respectively). Conclusion. Refilling an opioid prescription with the same opioid early is an infrequent behavior within all opioid users, but more common in ER/LA users. Patients who refilled early tended to do so just once. KeyWords: Opioids; Substance Abuse; Early Refills; REMS; Education; Continuing; Opioid Abuse
Objective. Refilling an opioid prescription early is an important risk factor of prescription opioid abuse and misuse; we aimed to understand the scope of this behavior. This study was conducted to quantify the prevalence and distribution of early refills among patients prescribed opioids. Methods. We conducted a retrospective cohort study utilizing dispensed prescription records. Patients filling one or more prescription opioids were identified and followed for one year. Early refills were defined as having a second prescription filled >15% early relative to the days' supply of the previous prescription for the same opioid (according to the National Drug Code [NDC]). The distribution of the number of early refills and patient characteristics were assessed. Results. A total of 60.6 million patients met the study criteria; 28.8% had two or more opioid prescriptions for the same opioid during follow-up. Less than 3% of all patients receiving an opioid had an early refill. Approximately 10% of those with two or more opioid prescriptions for the same drug had an early refill. For patients with multiple fills (N = 1.5 million with extended-release long-acting [ER/LA] opioids; N = 17.1 million with immediate-release short-acting [IR/SA] opioids), early refills were more common among patients with an ER/LA opioid (18.5%) compared with an IR/SA opioid (8.7%). Three-quarters of patients with an early refill had only one (70.9% and 78.4% for ER/LA and IR/SA, respectively). Conclusion. Refilling an opioid prescription with the same opioid early is an infrequent behavior within all opioid users, but more common in ER/LA users. Patients who refilled early tended to do so just once. KeyWords: Opioids; Substance Abuse; Early Refills; REMS; Education; Continuing; Opioid Abuse