Nurses' Role in Preventing Prescription Opioid Diversion.

Trends in opioid analgesic abuse and mortality in the United States.

BACKGROUND The use of prescription opioid medications has increased greatly in the United States during the past two decades; in 2010, there were 16,651 opioid-related deaths. In response, hundreds of federal, state, and local interventions have been implemented. We describe trends in the diversion and abuse of prescription opioid analgesics using data through 2013. METHODS We used five progr...

Diversion Alert: 1-Year Evaluation Across Northern New England, 2013–2014

This report describes Diversion Alert, a unique online tool aimed at reducing misuse and diversion of prescription drugs, and reports the results of a 1-year evaluation of Diversion Alert's impact in Maine. We used a quasi-experimental research design to compare survey data in Maine with those of neighboring states (New Hampshire and Vermont, 2013 and 2014). Compared with their counterparts in ...

Diversion and Illicit Sale of Extended Release Tapentadol in the United States

OBJECTIVE   Prescription opioid analgesics are commonly prescribed for moderate to severe pain. An unintended consequence of prescribing opioid analgesics is the abuse and diversion of these medications. Tapentadol ER is a recently approved centrally acting analgesic with synergistic mechanisms of action: μ-opioid receptor agonism and inhibition of norepinephrine reuptake. We assessed the amoun...

Opioid therapy and prescription drug diversion.

The opioid abuse and misuse epidemic: implications for pharmacists in hospitals and health systems.

PURPOSE The current epidemic of prescription opioid abuse and misuse in the United States is discussed, with an emphasis on the pharmacist's role in ensuring safe and effective opioid use. SUMMARY U.S. sales of prescription opioids increased fourfold from 1999 to 2010, with an alarming rise in deaths and emergency department visits associated with the use of fentanyl, hydrocodone, oxycodone, ...