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Many patients do not have a good understanding of their medications, including opioids, at the time of inpatient discharge. This lack of knowledge may contribute to patients' misuse and abuse of opioid prescriptions. This study found patients have a clearer understanding of safe opioid use when nurses also have a better understanding of safe practices around prescription opioids.
Over 50 million Americans are hospitalized annually after a surgical procedure (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC,] 2014), and many of them are discharged with a prescription for opioid analgesia. An increase in the number of opioid prescriptions also has been associated with an increase in nonmedical use of opioids (Kolodny et al., 2015). Nonmedical use of opioids refers to use of prescription opioids for the experience or feeling the drugs cause (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration [SAMHSA], 2015a).
Researchers followed 2,050 middle and high school students who had been prescribed an opioid for medical use over 2 years and identified increased risk for development of substance abuse by students who reported nonmedical use of these prescription opioids (McCabe, West, & Boyd, 2013). In 2014, 10.3 million persons reported nonmedical use of prescription opioids. Nonmedical use of prescription opioids is the second most common type of illicit drug use after marijuana (SAMHSA, 2015a). Results from the 2013 National Survey on Drug Use and Health indicate U.S. citizens over age 12 who report recent nonmedical use of opioids obtain these medications from prescriptions of family or friends (SAMHSA, 2014).
Opioids are effective medications for pain management but they come with inherent risks. Deaths from prescription analgesics in the United States have quadrupled since 1999. This increase in the number of deaths corresponds with a four-fold increase in prescription analgesics ordered and sold in the United States during this same period (SAMHSA, 2015a). Increased prescription opioid usage has coincided with a rise in substance abuse treatment admissions and emergency department visits related to prescription drug abuse (SAMHSA, 2015b). Nonmedical use of prescription opioids also is believed to be a risk factor for heroin use (Muhuri, Gfroerer, & Davies, 2013). The majority of current heroin users reported nonmedical use of opioids before starting heroin use (Compton, Jones, & Baldwin, 2016).
Other complications attributed to prescription drug...