Advertisement
AlertSubscribe to Email Alert
American Medical News

American Medical News

Advanced
 
PROFESSION

Reluctant to prescribe

Quick View. Aug. 6, 2007.

  • PRINT|
  • E-MAIL|
  • RESPOND|
  • REPRINTS|
  • Share SHARE Share
  •  

Statement Noncancer low back pain Cancer
Comfortable prescribing opioids 4.31 8.94
Annoyed by requests for early refills or more opioids 6.22 1.90
Strong empathy toward patient's pain 6.79 9.09
Opioids are effective for pain control 5.82 8.31
Long-term opioids are well-tolerated 5.51 7.81
Addiction risk is low 3.91 7.82
Give whatever dose is needed 3.66 8.41

Pain specialists' message that opioids are not just for patients with cancer is not quite getting through to physicians in training.

Across the board, residents were much more reluctant to prescribe opioids for noncancer patients, said a recent survey of 72 residents. That could be due to poor training, inexperience or fear of legal or regulatory scrutiny, study authors said. Researchers asked residents to react to the statements on a scale of zero ("strongly disagree") to 10 ("strongly agree"). The figures represent an average of the students' responses.


Source: "Medical residents' beliefs and concerns about using opioids to treat chronic cancer and noncancer pain: A pilot study," Journal of Rehabilitation Research & Development, Vol. 44, No. 2

Back to top

Copyright 2007 American Medical Association. All rights reserved.
RELATED CONTENT
» Patient contracts help physicians track pain medications  May 28
» Pain doctor again found guilty of drug trafficking  May 21
» Presentation of pain may harbor depression  April 9
» Opioid dependence linked to worse outcomes in back injury patients  Oct. 23/30, 2006
» DEA to let doctors write advance prescriptions for schedule II refills  Oct. 2, 2006
 
Advertisement