Managing cancer pain at the end of life with multiple strong opioids: a population-based retrospective cohort study in primary care.

ABSTRACT:

Background

End-of-life cancer patients commonly receive more than one type of strong opioid. The three-step analgesic ladder framework of the World Health Organisation (WHO) provides no guidance on multiple opioid prescribing and there is little epidemiological data available to inform practice. This study aims to investigate the time trend of such cases and the associated factors.

Methods

Strong opioid prescribing in the last three months of life of cancer patients were extracted from the General Practice Research Database (GPRD). The outcome variable was the number of different types of prescribed non-rescue doses of opioids (1 vs 2-4, referred to as a complex case). Associated factors were evaluated using prevalence ratios (PR) derived from multivariate log-binomial model

SUBMITTER: Gao W 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3903468 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature