↓ Skip to main content

Opioids for chronic non‐cancer pain in children and adolescents

Overview of attention for article published in Cochrane database of systematic reviews, July 2017
Altmetric Badge

About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (93rd percentile)
  • Good Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (67th percentile)

Mentioned by

policy
2 policy sources
twitter
51 X users
wikipedia
4 Wikipedia pages
googleplus
1 Google+ user

Citations

dimensions_citation
89 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
430 Mendeley
You are seeing a free-to-access but limited selection of the activity Altmetric has collected about this research output. Click here to find out more.
Title
Opioids for chronic non‐cancer pain in children and adolescents
Published in
Cochrane database of systematic reviews, July 2017
DOI 10.1002/14651858.cd012538.pub2
Pubmed ID
Authors

Tess E Cooper, Emma Fisher, Andrew L Gray, Elliot Krane, Navil Sethna, Miranda AL van Tilburg, Boris Zernikow, Philip J Wiffen

Abstract

Pain is a common feature of childhood and adolescence around the world, and for many young people, that pain is chronic. The World Health Organization guidelines for pharmacological treatments for children's persisting pain acknowledge that pain in children is a major public health concern of high significance in most parts of the world. While in the past, pain was largely dismissed and was frequently left untreated, views on children's pain have changed over time, and relief of pain is now seen as importantWe designed a suite of seven reviews on chronic non-cancer pain and cancer pain (looking at antidepressants, antiepileptic drugs, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, opioids, and paracetamol as priority areas) in order to review the evidence for children's pain utilising pharmacological interventions in children and adolescents.As the leading cause of morbidity in children and adolescents in the world today, chronic disease (and its associated pain) is a major health concern. Chronic pain (lasting three months or longer) can arise in the paediatric population in a variety of pathophysiological classifications: nociceptive, neuropathic, idiopathic, visceral, nerve damage pain, chronic musculoskeletal pain, and chronic abdominal pain, and other unknown reasons.Opioids are used worldwide for the treatment of pain. They bind to opioid receptors in the central nervous system (mu, kappa, delta, and sigma) and can be agonists, antagonists, mixed agonist-antagonists, or partial agonists. Opioids are generally available in healthcare settings across most high-income countries, but access may be restricted in low- and middle-income countries. For example, opioids currently available in the UK include: buprenorphine, codeine, fentanyl, hydromorphone, methadone, morphine, oxycodone, and tramadol. Opioids are used in varying doses (generally based on body weight for paediatric patients) by means of parenteral, transmucosal, transdermal, or oral administration (immediate release or modified release). To achieve adequate pain relief in children using opioids, with an acceptable grade of adverse effects, the recommended method is a lower dose gradually titrated to effect in the child. To assess the analgesic efficacy and adverse events of opioids used to treat chronic non-cancer pain in children and adolescents aged between birth and 17 years, in any setting. We searched the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL) via the Cochrane Library, MEDLINE via Ovid, and Embase via Ovid from inception to 6 September 2016. We also searched the reference lists of retrieved studies and reviews, and searched online clinical trial registries. Randomised controlled trials, with or without blinding, of any dose and any route, treating chronic non-cancer pain in children and adolescents, comparing opioids with placebo or an active comparator. Two review authors independently assessed studies for eligibility. We planned to use dichotomous data to calculate risk ratio and number needed to treat, using standard methods. We assessed GRADE (Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation) and planned to create a 'Summary of findings' table. No studies were eligible for inclusion in this review. We rated the quality of the evidence as very low. We downgraded the quality of evidence by three levels due to the lack of data reported for any outcome. There was no evidence from randomised controlled trials to support or refute the use of opioids to treat chronic non-cancer pain in children and adolescents. We are unable to comment about efficacy or harm from the use of opioids to treat chronic non-cancer pain in children and adolescents.We know from adult randomised controlled trials that some opioids, such as morphine and codeine, can be effective in certain chronic pain conditions.This means that no conclusions could be made about efficacy or harm in the use of opioids to treat chronic non-cancer pain in children and adolescents.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 51 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 430 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 430 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 56 13%
Researcher 55 13%
Student > Bachelor 37 9%
Student > Ph. D. Student 34 8%
Other 25 6%
Other 65 15%
Unknown 158 37%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 131 30%
Nursing and Health Professions 35 8%
Psychology 20 5%
Social Sciences 14 3%
Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutical Science 13 3%
Other 45 10%
Unknown 172 40%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 38. 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 November 2023.
All research outputs
#1,076,850
of 25,461,852 outputs
Outputs from Cochrane database of systematic reviews
#2,172
of 12,090 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#21,693
of 327,214 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Cochrane database of systematic reviews
#69
of 211 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,461,852 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 95th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 12,090 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 38.2. This one has done well, scoring higher than 82% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 327,214 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 93% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 211 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 67% of its contemporaries.