In Australia and New Zealand, in parallel with other developed countries, the number of patients prescribed opioids on a long-term basis has grown rapidly over the last decade. The burden of chronic pain is more widely recognised and there has been an increase in the use of opioids for both cancer and non-cancer indications. While the prevalence of illicit opioid use has remained relatively sta...

Treating chronic pain in the context of opioid misuse can be very challenging. This paper explores the epidemiology and potential treatments for chronic pain and opioid misuse and identifies educational and regulation changes that may reduce diversion of opioid analgesics. We cover the epidemiology of chronic pain and aberrant opioid behaviors, psychosocial influences on pain, pharmacological t...

The lead article in this issue of Addiction Science & Clinical Practice focuses on the blessing and curse of opioids. Drs. Savage, Kirsh, and Passik offer invaluable practical advice, useful to both substance abuse clinicians and pain specialists, on negotiating the difficult clinical issues that arise as a result of opioids’ gift of powerful analgesia and their bane of addiction. While support...

Opioid abuse is currently the most significant public health problem in the US. Many US states implemented prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs) in response. In this paper, I use a new micro-level medical claims database and I exploit state-level and time-series variations in PDMP implementation to shed light on the impacts of these programs. My results show that PDMPs lead to an overal...

evaluation and improvement of drug management process is essential for patient safety. the present study was performed whit the aim of assessing risk of drug management process in women surgery department of qeh using hfmea method in 2013. a mixed method was used to analys failure modes and their effects with hfmea. to classify failure modes; nursing errors in clinical management model, for cla...

Prescription drug misuse among older adults includes inappropriate and harmful use of these drugs. In this study, prescription drug misuse in assisted living settings as reported by direct care workers (DCWs) was examined. Data came from DCWs in 45 assisted living settings located in Pennsylvania. A total of 944 DCWs completed a questionnaire on their opinions of prescription drug misuse. DCWs ...

Multidrug use is well documented among nonmedical users of prescription stimulants. We sought to provide insight into the drug use patterns of those reporting nonmedical use of prescription attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) stimulants in an attempt to discern whether such use is a first step in a pattern of drug-abusing behavior or, conversely, is a later development accompanied o...

This study examines the nature, extent and consequences of prescription drug abuse among 143 ecstasy users in Miami. Participants were recruited through nightclub and college campus outreach, and through respondent referrals. Instrumentation included the Risk Behavior Assessment, Substance Abuse Module and Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale. Median age was 23, 42% were female a...