Abstract
Objectives
Emergency department (ED) visits for dental pain and low back pain (LBP) are common.
Many such patients have severe pain and receive opioids. Increased opioid-related
deaths has led to efforts to reduce opioid prescriptions. We compared recent trends
in use of analgesics and opioids in the ED and at discharge among patients with dental
or LBP.
Methods
We conducted a secondary analysis of the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care
Survey (NHAMCS) of patients with dental pain or LBP from 2010 to 2015. We performed
univariate and multivariate analyses exploring the association between pain location
and use of analgesics and opioids controlling for age, gender, and pain severity.
Results
There were an estimated 16 and 49 million patient visits for dental and LBP, respectively.
Prescription of opioids at discharge decreased from 59% to 50% (p = 0.02) in dental
and 46% to 39% in LBP patients (p = 0.09). Compared to patients with LBP, patients
with dental pain were less likely to receive analgesics (OR 0.65, 95% CI, 0.57–0.74)
or opioids (OR 0.51, 95% CI, 0.44–0.59) while in the ED. In contrast, dental pain
patients were more likely to have analgesics (OR 1.32, 95% CI, 1.16–1.51) or opioids
(OR 1.65, 95% CI, 1.47–1.85) prescribed at the time of ED discharge than patients
with LBP.
Conclusions
Prescription of opioids decreased for ED dental patients. While less likely to receive
analgesics and opioids in the ED, patients with dental pain were more likely to be
prescribed analgesics and opioids at the time of ED discharge than those with LBP.
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Article Info
Publication History
Published online: August 23, 2018
Accepted:
August 23,
2018
Received in revised form:
August 21,
2018
Received:
July 9,
2018
Footnotes
☆Meetings: Presented at the ACEP Research Forum, October 2017, Washington, DC.
Identification
Copyright
© 2018 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
