Long-term opioid therapy, defined as prescribed opioid use 90 days or longer, among U.S. patients declined from 5.6 million in 2015 to 4.2 million in 2023 — a 24.3% relative decrease, according to an April 8 research letter published in JAMA.
Researchers from Ann Arbor, Mich.-based University of Michigan School of Public Health and Medical School analyzed data from 2015 through 2023 in the IQVIA Longitudinal Prescription Database, which contains more than 90% of U.S. retail pharmacy claims across 51 jurisdictions. Here are six things to know:
Here are six things to know:
- There were 16,337,529 long-term opioid therapy episodes documented among 13,311,584 patients in the U.S. between 2015 and 2023.
- In 2023, patients receiving long-term opioid therapy accounted for 11.5% of all patients with any opioid episode.
- Mean age increased from 52.2 (standard deviation, 12.9) years in 2015 to 60.5 (SD, 12.4) years in 2023.
- Commercial insurance covered 40.9% of episodes in 2015, while Medicare covered 48.7% in 2023.
- Coprescribing rose from 68.5% in 2015 to 72.3% in 2023, driven by increases in gabapentinoids (47.0% to 58.7%) and stimulants (5.9% to 6.7%), while benzodiazepine coprescribing declined from 43.8% to 33.5%.
- Mean daily morphine milligram equivalents decreased from 47.9 (SD, 71.3) in 2015 to 38.6 (SD, 50.6) in 2023.
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