Cohort Description: Preventing an Opioid Epidemic in Norway – Focusing on Treatment of Chronic Pain (POINT) – A National Registry-Based Study

Abstract

The POINT project aims to provide evidence to optimise chronic pain management, prevent adverse consequences of opioids, and improve chronic pain patients' pain relief, functional capacity, and quality of life. We describe the outline of the project and its work packages. More specifically, we describe a cohort of persons with chronic pain and a cohort of long-term opioid users identified from a national registry linkage. Data Sources: The project utilises data from nationwide healthcare and population registers in Norway. Using the Norwegian Prescription Database, we identified a cohort of persons who have been dispensed drugs reimbursed for chronic pain and a cohort of persons who used opioids long term from 2010 to 2019. Data from the Norwegian Registry for Primary Health Care and the

Socioeconomic risk factors for long‐term opioid use: A national registry‐linkage study

“…Among those with incident opioid use, we identified our cases as those with at least one period of long‐term opioid use during the study follow‐up. Long‐term opioid use was identified according to Hamina et al (2022). According to this definition, a person was defined as having a long‐term opioid use period if they (1) had a first dispensation and then a second within 91–180 days from the first one and (2) were dispensed ≥90 administration units (e.g., tablets) of opioids within the first 90 days.…”

“…For our adjusted analysis, we included several covariates related to long‐term opioid use based on previous literature and clinical relevance (Hamina et al, 2022; Svendsen et al, 2014). The covariates included the following pain‐related diagnoses and symptoms: back pain, arthrosis, migraine, abdominal and pelvic pain and neuropathic pain (Table S3).…”

“…International guidelines similarly recommend restrictions on prescribing of opioids for long periods (Häuser et al, 2021). Despite this, more than 300,000 people in Norway (total population approximately 5.4 million people) used prescription opioids for a period longer than 3 months during 2010–2019 (Hamina et al, 2022). There is therefore a need to identify potential risk factors associated with the development of long‐term opioid use.…”

“…In Norway, the proportion of people who use prescription opioids on a yearly basis has remained stable over the past decade (Muller et al, 2019; The Norwegian Prescription Database, 2021). However, increases in oxycodone use, overdose deaths caused by pharmaceutically available opioids and the number of people using prescription opioids over long time periods have been observed (NIPH, 2023;Odsbu et al, 2022). The Norwegian national guidelines for the prescribing of addictive drugs recommends a maximum period of 4 weeks for the treatment of chronic non-malignant pain with opioid analgesics (The Norwegian Directorate of Health, 2021).…”

Mental disorder prevalence in chronic pain patients using opioid versus non‐opioid analgesics: A registry‐linkage study

“…The Norwegian reimbursement scheme has previously been described thoroughly (Hamina et al, 2022). Residents of Norway have universal health and social insurance coverage, and enrolment is automatic.…”