BACKGROUND Medicare beneficiaries without prescription drug coverage consistently fill fewer prescriptions than beneficiaries with some form of drug coverage due to cost. ESRD patients, who are disproportionately poor and typically use multiple oral medications, would likely benefit substantially from any form of prescription drug coverage. Because most hemodialysis patients are Medicare-eligib...

The most recent National Survey on Drug Use and Health showed a continuing trend in the nonmedical use of prescription medications, notably opioid analgesics, which accounted for 75% of prescription drug non-medical use in 2006. In 2006, in response to this growing “pharmacoepidemic,” the Office of National Drug Control Policy set a goal of reducing past month prescription drug abuse by 15% ove...

PURPOSE The purpose of this study was to assess the magnitude of prescription drug misuse among Oklahoma high school students, examine associated risk factors, and inform state-based prevention strategies. METHODS Data from the 2013 Oklahoma Youth Risk Behavior Survey were used for this analysis and were representative of public school students in grades 9 through 12 in Oklahoma. Variables we...

BACKGROUND Despite Canada's universal health insurance coverage, many Canadians still report an unmet need for health care. I investigated whether not having prescription drug insurance increases the likelihood of reporting an unmet need for health care. I hypothesized that people without prescription drug insurance would be more likely than those with insurance to report an unmet health care n...

With 6.5 million Americans misusing a prescription drug in 2014 and 12% of American teenagers indicating lifetime use of over-the-counter cold medicine or cough syrup for getting high, misuse and abuse of prescription and over-thecounter drugs remains a major problem in the United States. Prescription and over-the-counter drug abuse often results from unused or unwanted medications remaining in...

BACKGROUND: Prescription drug misuse among young adults is increasingly viewed as a public health concern, yet most research has focused on student populations and excluded high-risk groups. Furthermore, research on populations who report recent prescription drug misuse is limited. This study examined patterns of prescription drug misuse among high-risk young adults in Los Angeles (LA) and New ...

CONTEXT Narcotics are frequently prescribed in the Emergency Department (ED) and are increasingly abused. Prescription monitoring programs affect prescribing by Emergency Physicians (EPs), yet little is known on how EPs interpret prescription records. OBJECTIVE To assess how EPs interpret prescription narcotic history for patients in the ED with painful conditions. DESIGN/MAIN Outcome Measure...