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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention opioid guidelines: potential for unintended consequences and will they be abused?
Author(s) -
Pergolizzi J. V.,
Raffa R. B.,
LeQuang J. A.
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
journal of clinical pharmacy and therapeutics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.622
H-Index - 73
eISSN - 1365-2710
pISSN - 0269-4727
DOI - 10.1111/jcpt.12444
Subject(s) - medicine , disease control , scientific evidence , unintended consequences , control (management) , opioid , opioid epidemic , medical emergency , computer science , political science , environmental health , philosophy , receptor , epistemology , artificial intelligence , law
Summary What is known and objective The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ( CDC ) have published guidelines for opioid prescribing, with the goal of helping guide clinicians to make safe prescribing choices. In the form of 12 statements, the CDC offers guidance that at times is not supported by the evidence or introduces new concepts (such as a requirement that opioids improve function). Our objective was to examine the new guidelines in terms of how well they could strike the balance between keeping opioids accessible to those who need them while appropriately restricting their use. What is new and conclusion The CDC guidelines offer some reasonable and laudable guidance, but they also make some recommendations which are not supported by current scientific evidence. We also noted that the urgent need for greater education among opioid prescribers was not addressed in the new guidelines.