Twenty-five years of prescription opioid use in Australia: a whole-of-population analysis using pharmaceutical claims.

ABSTRACT:

Aim

The aim of this paper is to investigate 25-year trends in community use of prescribed opioid analgesics in Australia, and to map these trends against major changes to opioid registration and subsidy.

Methods

We obtained dispensing data from 1990 to 2014 from two sources: dispensing claims processed under Australia's national drug subsidy programme, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, including under co-payment records from 2012; and estimates of non-subsidized medicine use from a survey of Australian pharmacies (until 2011). Utilization was expressed in defined daily doses (DDD)/1000 population/day.

Results

Opioid dispensing increased almost four-fold between 1990 and 2014, from 4.6 to 17.4 DDD/1000 pop/day. In 1990, weak, short-acting or orally administered opioi

SUBMITTER: Karanges EA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4917790 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature