Pain is becoming a fact of life for more and more people, and they are turning to opioids to treat it, according to a survey sponsored by the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health.
Researchers looked at nearly 2 decades-worth of cumulative data from the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS). They found that since 1997/1998, pain prevalence in US adults rose by 25%.
In 1997/1998, about 33% of American adults had at ≤ 1 painful health condition. In 2013/2014, that proportion was 41%. For about 68 million people, moderate-to-severe pain was interfering with normal work activities. And those people were turning more often to strong opioids—eg, fentanyl, morphine, oxycodone—for help. Use of opioids to manage pain more than doubled in just 10 years: from 4.1 million (11.5%) in 2001/2002 to 10.5 million (24.3%) in 2013/2014.
People with severe pain-related interference also were more likely to have had > 4 opioid prescriptions and to have visited a doctor’s office > 6 times for pain compared with those with minimal pain-related interference.
Opioid use peaked between 2005 and 2012, but since 2012, opioid use has slightly declined. The researchers say this ties to a reduction in use of weak opioids and in the number of patients reporting only 1 opioid prescription.
The survey also found some small downward shifts in health care visits. Ambulatory office visits plateaued between 2001/2002 and 2007/2008 and decreased through 2013/2014. The researchers also found small but statistically significant drops in pain-related emergency department visits and overnight hospital stays.
The researchers say their findings suggest more education about the risk/benefit ratio of opioids “appears warranted.”