Dr Caitlin Jones aimed to investigate the efficacy and safety of opioids for low back pain, and uncovered some interesting findings in her research. Dr Caitlin Jones unpacks her findings in this latest episode of Research Bytes. Listen to find out more, you can read [...]
This study aimed to evaluate whether voluntary and mandatory prescription drug monitoring program (PDMP) use in Victoria, Australia, had an impact on prescribing behaviour, focusing on individual patients' prescribed opioid doses and transition to prescribing of nonmonitored medications.
Internationally, non-traumatic low back pain (LBP) is an increasingly common presentation to ambulance services. Consequently, paramedics are often the first providers of care for people with LBP. Australian guidelines for paramedic management of LBP recommend the use of simple analgesia, hot/cold therapy and for people [...]
The objective of this study is to compare and contrast the quality statements and quality indicators across clinical care standards for low back pain. Searches were performed in Medline, guideline databases, and Google searches to identify clinical care standards for the management of low back [...]
Opioids and imaging are considered low-value care for most people with low back pain. Yet around one in three people presenting to the emergency department (ED) will receive imaging, and two in three will receive an opioid. NUDG-ED aims to determine the effectiveness of two [...]
Pain is one of the most burdensome symptoms in people with cancer, and opioid analgesics are considered the mainstay of cancer pain management. For this review, the authors evaluated the efficacy and toxicities of opioid analgesics compared with placebo, other opioids, nonopioid analgesics, and nonpharmacologic [...]
Prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMP) are increasingly used to identify people prescribed high-dose opioids. However, little is known about whether PDMPs impact opioid agonist treatment (OAT) uptake, the gold standard for opioid use disorder. This study examined the impact of PDMP implementation on OAT initiation [...]
Pain medicines are widely prescribed by general practitioners (GPs) when managing people with low back pain (LBP), but little is known about what drives decisions to prescribe these medicines. The aim of this study was to investigate what influences GPs' decision to prescribe pain medicines [...]
Low back pain (LBP) is commonly treated with opioid analgesics despite evidence that these medicines provide minimal or no benefit for LBP and have an established profile of harms. International guidelines discourage or urge caution with the use of opioids for back pain; however, doctors [...]
Increasing harms related to prescription opioids over the past decade have led to the introduction of a range of key national and state policy initiatives across Australia. These include introducing a mandatory real-time prescription drug–monitoring program in the state of Victoria from April 2020 and [...]