Practice variation in opioid prescribing for non-cancer pain in Dutch primary care: A retrospective database study

BackgroundPrescription opioid use has increased steadily in many Western countries over the past two decades, most notably in the US, Canada, and most European countries, including the Netherlands. Especially the increasing use of prescription opioids for chronic non-cancer pain has raised concerns....

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2023-01, Vol.18 (2), p.e0282222
Main Authors: G A Kalkman, C Kramers, R T van Dongen, H J Schers, R L M van Boekel, J M Bos, K Hek, A F A Schellekens, F Atsma
Format: Article
Language:English
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Summary:BackgroundPrescription opioid use has increased steadily in many Western countries over the past two decades, most notably in the US, Canada, and most European countries, including the Netherlands. Especially the increasing use of prescription opioids for chronic non-cancer pain has raised concerns. Most opioids in the Netherlands are prescribed in general practices. However, little is known about variation in opioid prescribing between general practices. To better understand this, we investigated practice variation in opioid prescribing for non-cancer pain between Dutch general practices.MethodsData from 2017-2019 of approximately 10% of all Dutch general practices was used. Each year included approximately 1000000 patients distributed over approximately 380 practices. The primary outcome was the proportion of patients with chronic (>90 days) high-dose (≥90 oral morphine equivalents) opioid prescriptions. The secondary outcome was the proportion of patients with chronic (
ISSN:1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0282222