The volume of prescription opioids dispensed at retail pharmacies in the United States dropped by 21% in recent years amid efforts to reduce unnecessary use of the painkillers, but the rate of decline varied greatly among types of patients and by type of clinician, a study found.
In a brief report published December 28 by the Annals of Internal Medicine, researchers from the nonprofit RAND Corp reported an analysis of opioid prescriptions from two periods, 2008–2009 and 2017–2018.
Dr Bradley Stein
The researchers sought to assess total opioid use rather than simply track the number of pills dispensed. So they used days' supply and total daily dose to calculate per capita morphine milligram equivalents (MME) for opioid prescriptions, write Bradley D. Stein, MD, PhD, MPH, the study's lead author and a senior physician researcher at RAND Corp, and his co-authors in their paper.
For the study, the researchers used data from the consulting firm IQVIA, which they say covers about 90% of US prescriptions. Total opioid volume per capita by prescriptions filled in retail pharmacies decreased from 951.4 MME in 2008–2009 to 749.3 MME in 2017–2018, Stein's group found.
(In 2020, IQVIA separatelysaid that prescription opioid use per adult in this country rose from an average of 16 pills, or 134 MMEs, in 1992 to a peak of about 55 pills a person, or 790 MMEs, in 2011.
