Abstract
Background
Chronic pain patients at risk of addiction can be identified through pre-prescription screening with the opioid risk tool (ORT); there is no equivalent for surgical patients. Our aims were to validate the ORT in the surgical population and assess the impact of patient education on compliance with proper storage and disposal (S&D) of unused opioid therapy (UOT).
Methods
Each subject completed the ORT, prevideo and postvideo surveys, educational video viewing, and compliance survey. Aberrant behavior was assessed by questionnaire, chart review, and Illinois Prescription Monitoring Program review.
Results
We recruited 24 subjects who underwent emergency surgery; 18 (of 24) were prescribed an opioid on discharge and 15 (of 18) were followed for 1 month. Before education, 38% (n = 9 of 24) of subjects identified proper UOT disposal and 63% (n = 15 of 24) identified safe handling of opioids. After education, 75% (n = 18 of 24) identified proper S&D. On ORT, 9 of 24 subjects (38%) scored moderate-risk to high-risk for opioid misuse. Half of subjects who demonstrated aberrant behavior (n = 7 of 12, 58%) scored in the low-risk range on ORT; 67% of subjects (n = 10 of 15) retained UOT, and 67% (n = 10 of 15) safely stored UOT. Few subjects (30%; n = 3 of 10) who stored their UOT reported proper disposal of UOT.
Discussion
The ORT is not useful in identifying acute pain surgical patients at risk for aberrant behavior. An educational video increased awareness of, but not compliance with, safe S&D of UOT. Opioid overprescription continues to contribute to opioid misuse.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
