Arthritis Rheumatol: Physician prescription patterns for rheumatoid arthritis and the risks of long-term opioid use

The study aims to determine the extent to which opioid prescription rates in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (
RA) in the United States have changed and to determine the impact of baseline opioid prescription rates on the likelihood of future long-term opioid useidentifiedRApatients from doctors who participated in theCorronaRAregistrationhead within 12monthsThe baseline opioid prescription rate is based on the number of rheumatoid arthritis patients reported using opioids in the previous12months by the number of rheumatoid arthritis patients who provided data for the current yearThe ratio of chronic opioid use (
ORswas estimated using a broad linear hybrid model)in the Very Low Prescription Strength Group (Reference Group), the percentage of patients reporting long-term opioid use during follow-up was7.0% (
163/2322), compared with6.8(
153/2254) in the low prescription intensity group and12.5in the medium prescription intensity group (
22352 ) Compared with patients with very low prescription strength physicians, the OR (
95 % confidence interval) of long-term use of opioids after the baseline period was 1.16 (
0.79-1.70 ), the number of patients with medium prescription strength was 1.89 (
1.27-2.82 ) and the number of patients with high prescription strength was 2.
01.01(
.43.2 3 prescription rates for opioids vary widely After controlling patient characteristics, baseline opioid prescription rates are a strong predictor of whether patients will become long-term opioid users in the future