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American adults who are abusing prescription narcotic painkillers has dipped slightly in the last de
16 October, 2015
Prescription Painkiller Abuse Rate Down, But Many Are Addicted: Study. nlm.nih.gov. October 13, 2015. Second study finds 80 percent of abusers don’t get treatment for their addiction. The percentage of American adults who are abusing prescription narcotic painkillers has dipped slightly in the last decade, a new survey reveals.That’s the good news. The bad news: Those who do abuse these powerful drugs are doing so more frequently and they are more likely to become addicted. "It is encouraging that the percentage of nonmedical use of opioids [narcotics] decreased," said study author Dr. Beth Han, a statistician with the Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality at the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration.
But at the same time, the mixed results "underscore the importance of treatment for substance use disorders," Han added."Most adults with prescription opioid [narcotic] use disorders or other substance use disorders neither receive treatment nor perceive a need for treatment," said Han. Her team’s report is published in the Oct. 13 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
A second report published in the same journal backs that up: Eighty percent of narcotics abusers fail to get any treatment for their addiction. In fact, treatment rates have remained essentially static since 2004, said the researchers from Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in Baltimore.
The Han analysis included responses provided between 2003 and 2013 by more than 472,000 adults who participated in the annual surveys on drug use.
Respondents indicated whether or not they had ever used prescription narcotics for a non-prescribed purpose during the prior year.
People who said they had were then asked to indicate how often they had done so, how they had obtained the drugs, and at what age they had first abused prescription narcotics.
The same group was also asked to discuss any history of depression and/or substance abuse or dependence. Those substances included alcohol, pot, cocaine and heroin, as well as a wide range of stimulant and/or sedative types of prescription meds.
In addition to a small drop in overall prescription narcotic painkiller abuse between the first survey and the last, investigators also observed a small drop in the percentage of people who said they had abused prescription narcotics for the first time in the prior year (from 1 percent in 2003 to 0.6 percent by 2013).
However, in the same timeframe, more of those who said they abused prescription narcotics abused them more frequently (0.6 percent in 2003 and 0.9 percent by 2013).
Such dependence typically manifests as an uncontrollable desire to keep taking drugs, even in the face of harmful consequences and even when drug use begins to take over a person’s life. Increased tolerance (requiring more drugs to achieve the same high) is another sign of dependence, as is difficulty stopping.
A decade of data obtained from the U.S. National Vital Statistics System further revealed that more American adults are now dying from prescription narcotics abuse than before.
Specifically, the analysis found that while 4.5 out of every 100,000 Americans died from a related overdose in 2003, that figure had risen to 7.8 by 2013.
Dr. Lewis Nelson, author of an accompanying editorial, suggested that the findings demonstrate that "the problems associated with opioid [narcotic] misuse are still massive."
According to Nelson, "We have a generation of patients addicted to and overdosing on medications that are unlikely to have been beneficial in the first place." Nelson is a professor in the department of emergency medicine at the NYU School of Medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City.
"The silver lining may be that fewer patients are using opioids [narcotics] nonmedically, but the dark cloud is that more patients are misusing greater quantities, suffering more [addiction], and are dying," Nelson said.
Reining in the problem will require accepting the fact that "we cannot make [narcotics] safer, and they do not work for most chronic pain," Nelson added.
"We have to reset the expectations for pain relief and function among our prescribers and patients to match this reality," he said. "To this end, raising the bar for the use of opioids for the treatment of either acute or chronic pain will expose fewer patients to their risks."
SOURCES: Beth Han, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., statistician, Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Rockville, Md.; Lewis S. Nelson, M.D., professor, department of emergency medicine, NYU School of Medicine, NYU Langone Medical Center, New York City; Oct. 13, 2015, Journal of the American Medical Association
HealthDay
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Read also related: Americans Concerned About Prescription Painkiller Addiction. By Mary Elizabeth Dallas. nlm.nih.gov. October 12, 2015. People support more education for doctors and regulations to limit abusive access, survey finds.Most Americans are concerned about the abuse of narcotic painkillers, despite widespread use of these legal medications, new research suggests.
About one in four Americans reported taking a prescription painkiller — such as hydrocodone (Vicodin) or oxycodone (Percocet, Oxycontin) — within the past year, the study said.
Around 70 percent of Americans said they’ve been prescribed narcotic painkillers at some point in their life. And almost 20 percent admit they’ve taken painkillers prescribed for someone else, the study revealed.
"This study shows that many Americans have had direct experience using prescription pain relievers and a sizable share have misused or abused these medications themselves, or have close friends or family members who have done so," study leader Colleen Barry, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said in a university news release.
At the same time, however, the researchers found that almost 60 percent of Americans believe abuse of these medications is a significant public health concern. That’s similar to Americans’ views on other public health concerns such as gun violence and tobacco use, the researchers said.
In 2012, drug overdoses, primarily involving prescription painkillers, surpassed car crashes to become the leading cause of injury death, the researchers said. In addition, costs related to abuse of these drugs is estimated to be around $50 billion a year.
The study, published in the Oct. 7 online edition of the journal Addiction, included a web-based public opinion survey. The researchers heard from more than 1,100 U.S. adults in February 2014.
Most people thought doctors prescribing these drugs were responsible for the current health crisis. Survey participants believed that patients are kept on these drugs for too long, and it was too easy to get more than one prescription for these drugs. Many respondents said that people don’t realize how easy it is to become addicted to these medications.
The survey revealed wide support among Americans for policy changes proposed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, the American Medical Association and the Trust for America’s Health.
"We think this is the perfect time to work on passing policies that can truly impact the crisis of prescription pain reliever abuse," study co-author Emma "Beth" McGinty, an assistant professor at the Bloomberg School, said in the news release. "The issue has not yet been highly politicized like some public health issues such as the Affordable Care Act, gun violence or needle exchanges, so we may have an opportunity to stem this epidemic."
People who answered the survey supported additional training for doctors in how to control patients’ pain and treat addiction. They also supported measures that keep patients from getting multiple painkiller prescriptions from different doctors, as well as rules that require pharmacists to check patients’ identification before distributing narcotic painkillers.
Two proposed changes lacked broad support, the findings showed. Slightly less than half of people surveyed wanted greater distribution of medications that can reverse an overdose of these painkilling medications. And only 39 percent supported more government spending on addiction treatment.
SOURCE: Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, news release, Oct. 7, 2015
HealthDay
About one in four Americans reported taking a prescription painkiller — such as hydrocodone (Vicodin) or oxycodone (Percocet, Oxycontin) — within the past year, the study said.
Around 70 percent of Americans said they’ve been prescribed narcotic painkillers at some point in their life. And almost 20 percent admit they’ve taken painkillers prescribed for someone else, the study revealed.
"This study shows that many Americans have had direct experience using prescription pain relievers and a sizable share have misused or abused these medications themselves, or have close friends or family members who have done so," study leader Colleen Barry, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said in a university news release.
At the same time, however, the researchers found that almost 60 percent of Americans believe abuse of these medications is a significant public health concern. That’s similar to Americans’ views on other public health concerns such as gun violence and tobacco use, the researchers said.
In 2012, drug overdoses, primarily involving prescription painkillers, surpassed car crashes to become the leading cause of injury death, the researchers said. In addition, costs related to abuse of these drugs is estimated to be around $50 billion a year.
The study, published in the Oct. 7 online edition of the journal Addiction, included a web-based public opinion survey. The researchers heard from more than 1,100 U.S. adults in February 2014.
Most people thought doctors prescribing these drugs were responsible for the current health crisis. Survey participants believed that patients are kept on these drugs for too long, and it was too easy to get more than one prescription for these drugs. Many respondents said that people don’t realize how easy it is to become addicted to these medications.
The survey revealed wide support among Americans for policy changes proposed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, the American Medical Association and the Trust for America’s Health.
"We think this is the perfect time to work on passing policies that can truly impact the crisis of prescription pain reliever abuse," study co-author Emma "Beth" McGinty, an assistant professor at the Bloomberg School, said in the news release. "The issue has not yet been highly politicized like some public health issues such as the Affordable Care Act, gun violence or needle exchanges, so we may have an opportunity to stem this epidemic."
People who answered the survey supported additional training for doctors in how to control patients’ pain and treat addiction. They also supported measures that keep patients from getting multiple painkiller prescriptions from different doctors, as well as rules that require pharmacists to check patients’ identification before distributing narcotic painkillers.
Two proposed changes lacked broad support, the findings showed. Slightly less than half of people surveyed wanted greater distribution of medications that can reverse an overdose of these painkilling medications. And only 39 percent supported more government spending on addiction treatment.
SOURCE: Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, news release, Oct. 7, 2015
HealthDay