Health & Medicine
Opioid Use High Among Social Security Disability Recipients
Kathleen Lees
First Posted: Aug 14, 2014 11:18 AM EDT
A new report found that more than 40 percent of Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) recipients use opioid pain relievers. However, 20 percent and rising are taking them for extended periods, which may increase the risk of addiction, according to findings published in the journal Medical Care.
This high number of SSDI recipients using chronic opioids "is worrisome in light of established and growing evidence that intense opioid use to treat non-malignant [non-cancer] pain may not be effective and may confer important risk," noted Dr. Nancy Elizabeth Morden and colleagues of the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice, Lebanon, N.H., in a news release.
For their findings, researchers analyzed trends in use of prescription opioids among disabled Medicare beneficiaries under 65 between 2007 and 2011.
Results showed a rising prevalence of opioid use by SSDI recipients, all typically under-65 Medicare beneficiaries. The percentage of beneficiaries taking opioids increased from 2007 through 2010. In 2011, the most recent year with available data, prevalence dipped to slightly below 43.7 percent.
However, chronic opioid use rose steadily from 21.4 percent in 2007 to 23.1 percent in 2011, with between six and 13 opioid prescriptions filled per year by multiple individuals for the average person. Study findings also revealed that men were at greater use for becoming chronic opioid users than men.
"Opioid use of this intensity has been associated with risk of overdose death in the general US population and more specifically in disabled workers," Dr Morden noted.
However, opioid dependence varied drastically throughout the United States, with regional prevalence of opioid use among SSDI recipients between 22.0 to 58.6 percent. Chronic use ranged from 14 to 36.6 percent, based on drug dosage and specific drugs prescribed by region.
Much of the time, opioid use was determined by certain musculoskeletal diseases, which represented 94 percent of chronic opioid users. Researchers also noted a high rate of depression at 38 percent among patients taking chronic opioids.
"We are not suggesting that all chronic opioid use is more harmful than beneficial," researchers concluded, "but rather that the common and increasing chronic use we observed seems inconsistent with the uncertainties surrounding such prescribing practice."
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First Posted: Aug 14, 2014 11:18 AM EDT
A new report found that more than 40 percent of Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) recipients use opioid pain relievers. However, 20 percent and rising are taking them for extended periods, which may increase the risk of addiction, according to findings published in the journal Medical Care.
This high number of SSDI recipients using chronic opioids "is worrisome in light of established and growing evidence that intense opioid use to treat non-malignant [non-cancer] pain may not be effective and may confer important risk," noted Dr. Nancy Elizabeth Morden and colleagues of the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy & Clinical Practice, Lebanon, N.H., in a news release.
For their findings, researchers analyzed trends in use of prescription opioids among disabled Medicare beneficiaries under 65 between 2007 and 2011.
Results showed a rising prevalence of opioid use by SSDI recipients, all typically under-65 Medicare beneficiaries. The percentage of beneficiaries taking opioids increased from 2007 through 2010. In 2011, the most recent year with available data, prevalence dipped to slightly below 43.7 percent.
However, chronic opioid use rose steadily from 21.4 percent in 2007 to 23.1 percent in 2011, with between six and 13 opioid prescriptions filled per year by multiple individuals for the average person. Study findings also revealed that men were at greater use for becoming chronic opioid users than men.
"Opioid use of this intensity has been associated with risk of overdose death in the general US population and more specifically in disabled workers," Dr Morden noted.
However, opioid dependence varied drastically throughout the United States, with regional prevalence of opioid use among SSDI recipients between 22.0 to 58.6 percent. Chronic use ranged from 14 to 36.6 percent, based on drug dosage and specific drugs prescribed by region.
Much of the time, opioid use was determined by certain musculoskeletal diseases, which represented 94 percent of chronic opioid users. Researchers also noted a high rate of depression at 38 percent among patients taking chronic opioids.
"We are not suggesting that all chronic opioid use is more harmful than beneficial," researchers concluded, "but rather that the common and increasing chronic use we observed seems inconsistent with the uncertainties surrounding such prescribing practice."
See Now: NASA's Juno Spacecraft's Rendezvous With Jupiter's Mammoth Cyclone