“Nearly 30 percent of U.S. patients prescribed opioids by doctors over the course of a decade had no recorded pain diagnosis, according to a new letter published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
Researchers analyzed data from 31,943 visits in which a patient age 18 or older received an opioid prescription, part of the National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conducts this annual survey to track why people visit physician offices, what diagnoses, services and treatments they receive, and what medications are prescribed.
The research team did not make a conclusion that these prescriptions were inappropriate, said Tisamarie Sherry, an associate physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and the letter’s lead author. There was not enough information to make that judgment, Sherry said.”
Read more at: https://www.pbs.org/newshour/health/nearly-30-percent-of-patients-prescribed-opioids-had-no-recorded-pain-diagnoses
Source: PBS.org: September 10, 2018
