New report says Ontario doctors appear to be prescribing lower amounts of opioids

A new report says Ontario doctors appear to be prescribing lower amounts of opioids overall to treat patients with pain, although many long-time users continue to get daily doses exceeding national guidelines.

The report by the Ontario Drug Policy Research Network found the number of people prescribed an opioid remained relatively constant over the last five years, with almost two-million residents treated with the addictive medications last year.

However, the overall volume of opioids dispensed fell by 18 per cent between January 2015 and March 2017, driven by a drop in the amount of long-acting formulations prescribed.

Lead author Tara Gomes says that while similar numbers of people are being treated with opioids for pain, they’re getting smaller amounts of the potent medications in more prescriptions.

But at the same time, researchers found that nearly 40 per cent of long-acting opioid prescriptions dispensed to people already using the drugs for chronic non-cancer pain had daily doses above the recommended threshold.

Gomes says that while opioids for pain are being prescribed evenly across all income groups, replacement drugs like methadone and suboxone to treat addiction were concentrated among lower socio-economic populations.

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