The Impact of Opioid Prescribing Limits on Drug Usage in South Carolina: A Novel Geospatial and Time Series Data Analysis

The opioid crisis in the United States has had devastating effects on communities across the country, leading many states to pass legislation that limits the prescription of opioid medications in an effort to reduce the number of overdose deaths. This study investigates the impact of South Carolina&...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Healthcare (Basel) 2023-04, Vol.11 (8), p.1132
Main Authors: Sahebi-Fakhrabad, Amirreza, Sadeghi, Amir Hossein, Kemahlioglu-Ziya, Eda, Handfield, Robert, Tohidi, Hossein, Vasheghani-Farahani, Iman
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
ARIMAX
Benzodiazepines
Classification
Drug dosages
Drug overdose
Drugs
Hypotheses
interrupted time series
Laws, regulations and rules
Methadone
Morphine
Narcotic laws
Narcotics
Overdose
Patients
pharmaceutical supply chain
Pharmacy
policy analysis
Prescribing
prescription drug abuse
Prescription drugs
Prescription writing
Research design
spatiotemporal classification
Supply chains
Time series
Trends
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Summary:The opioid crisis in the United States has had devastating effects on communities across the country, leading many states to pass legislation that limits the prescription of opioid medications in an effort to reduce the number of overdose deaths. This study investigates the impact of South Carolina's prescription limit law (S.C. Code Ann. 44-53-360), which aims to reduce opioid overdose deaths, on opioid prescription rates. The study utilizes South Carolina Reporting and Identification Prescription Tracking System (SCRIPTS) data and proposes a distance classification system to group records based on proximity and evaluates prescription volumes in each distance class. Prescription volumes were found to be highest in classes with pharmacies located further away from the patient. An Interrupted Time Series (ITS) model is utilized to assess the policy impact, with benzodiazepine prescriptions as a control group. The ITS models indicate an overall decrease in prescription volume, but with varying impacts across the different distance classes. While the policy effectively reduced opioid prescription volumes overall, an unintended consequence was observed as prescription volume increased in areas where prescribers were located at far distances from patients, highlighting the limitations of state-level policies on doctors. These findings contribute to the understanding of the effects of prescription limit laws on opioid prescription rates and the importance of considering location and distance in policy design and implementation.
ISSN:2227-9032
2227-9032
DOI:10.3390/healthcare11081132