Open AccessStudying Adverse Events Related to Prescription Opioids: The Utah Experience
Author(s) -
Porucznik Christina A.,
Johnson Erin M.,
Sauer Brian,
Crook Jacob,
Rolfs Robert T.
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
pain medicine
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.893
H-Index - 97
eISSN - 1526-4637
pISSN - 1526-2375
DOI - 10.1111/j.1526-4637.2011.01133.x
Subject(s) - medical prescription , medicine , harm , emergency department , medical examiner , psychological intervention , prescription drug , cohort , medical emergency , medical record , drug overdose , emergency medicine , poison control , family medicine , injury prevention , psychiatry , pharmacology , psychology , social psychology
Background. Epidemiologists at the Utah Department of Health (UDOH) began to study prescription drug‐related harm in 2004. We have analyzed several types of data including vital statistics, medical examiner records, emergency department diagnoses, and the state prescription registry to estimate the scope and correlates of prescription drug‐related harm. Objectives. To describe data sets analyzed in Utah related to the problem of prescription drug‐related harm with the goal of designing interventions to reduce the burden of adverse events and death. Results. Prescription drug‐related harm in Utah primarily involved opioids and can be examined with secondary analysis of administrative databases, although each database has limitations. Conclusions. More analyses, likely from cohort studies, are needed to identify risky prescribing patterns and individual‐level risk factors for opioid‐related harm. Combining data sets via linkage procedures can generate individual‐level drug exposure and outcome histories, which may be useful to simulate a prospective cohort.