Patient-Centered Research Can Improve Chronic Pain Care and Address Opioid Abuse

By JOE SELBY, MD For more than a decade, the United States has faced an escalating opioid abuse crisis. The number of deaths associated with abuse of these prescription painkillers more than tripled between 1999 and 2012 and now outstrips the number associated with any other drug, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The problem is estimated to approach $56 billion in costs to society. Often, opioid abuse or overuse is associated with patients seeking effective relief from the common and often devastating problem of chronic pain, which has been reported as affecting up to one in three US adults. People in pain often request opioid medications, not understanding that these drugs don’t effectively treat certain types of pain, don’t work well for many people, and can lead to a range of additional health problems. Researchers, policy makers, clinicians, and their professional organizations are working hard to stem the opioid abuse epidemic, seeking ways to reduce overprescribing of these drugs by expanding the use of alternative and supporting therapies, as well as identifying more effective treatments for addiction. These are important steps, but we clearly need more evidence-based information about how to better treat chronic pain. We at the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) believe that when it comes to this issue, we can help by funding research that compares what works best, for whom, under which circumstances. In the last t...
Source: The Health Care Blog - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: THCB Source Type: blogs