Unsolicited Reporting to Prescribers of Opioid Analgesics by a State Prescription Drug Monitoring Program: An Observational Study with Matched Comparison Group
State prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs) can help detect individuals with multiple provider episodes (MPEs; also referred to as doctor/pharmacy shopping), an indicator of prescription drug abuse and/or diversion. Although unsolicited reporting by PDMPs to prescribers of opioid analgesics is thought to be an important practice in reducing MPEs and the potential harm associated with them, evidence of its effectiveness is mixed. This exploratory research evaluates the impact of unsolicited reports sent by Massachusetts' PDMP to the prescribers of persons with MPEs.
Individuals with MPEs were identified from PDMP records between January 2010 and July 2011 as individuals having Schedule II prescriptions (at least one prescription being an opioid) from four or more distinct prescribers and four or more distinct pharmacies within six months. Based on available MA-PDMP resources, an unsolicited report containing the patient's 12-month prescription history was sent to prescribers of a subset of patients who met the MPE threshold; a comparison group closely matched on demographics and baseline prescription history, whose prescribers were not sent a report, was generated using propensity score matching. The prescription history of each group was examined for 12 months before and after the intervention.
There were eighty-four patients (intervention group) whose prescribers received an unsolicited report and 504 matched patients (comparison group) whose prescribers were not sent a report. Regression analyses indicated significantly greater decreases in the number of Schedule II opioid prescriptions ( P < 0.01), number of prescribers visited ( P < 0.01), number of pharmacies used ( P < 0.01), dosage units ( P < 0.01), total days' supply ( P < 0.01), total morphine milligram equivalents (MME; P < 0.01), and average daily MME ( P < 0.05) for the intervention group relative to the comparison group. A post hoc analysis suggested that the observed intervention effects were greater for individuals with an average daily dose of less than 100 MMEs.
This study suggests that PDMP unsolicited reporting to prescribers can help reduce risk measures in patients' prescription histories, which may improve health outcomes for patients receiving opioid analgesics from multiple providers.
Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutical Science
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11%
Social Sciences
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8%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences
1
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Other
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13%
Unknown
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34%
Attention Score in Context
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 6. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 16 March 2023.
All research outputs
#7,336,887
of 33,779,198 outputs
Outputs from Pain Medicine
#1,343
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Outputs of similar age
#94,527
of 351,166 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Pain Medicine
#36
of 108 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 33,779,198 research outputs across all sources so far. This one has received more attention than most of these and is in the 73rd percentile.
So far Altmetric has tracked 3,623 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 14.3. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 60% of its peers.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 108 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 66% of its contemporaries.
