Ten‐year trend of opioid and nonopioid analgesic use in the French adult population

Abstract

Aims Analgesics are the most widely used medicines worldwide. In parallel, opioid abuse has increased and is of major concern. The accessibility of pharmacologically powerful medicines and the addictovigilance signals in France about the risk of opiates addiction call for an overview of analgesic use. The objective of this study was to investigate the use of analgesics reimbursed in France over a 10‐year period through its prevalence. Methods A cross‐sectional study repeated yearly was conducted by using data from the French reimbursement database from 2006 to 2015. Analgesics were classified according to their pharmacological potency: prevalence of use for each category and sociodemographic characteristics of patients treated were analysed. Results The annual prevalence of analgesic use was high and increased during the study period (59.8%, 253 976 users in 2015). In 2015, prevalence was always higher in women and increased with age, except for those older than 84 years. Peripheral analgesics were the most used (55.3%, 234 739 users). The prevalence of weak analgesic use decreased (21.3%, 90 257 users), mainly due to the definitive withdrawal of dextropropoxyphene in France in 2011, which was not offset by an increase in the consumption of other weak analgesics. For strong analgesics (1.2%, 5129 users), morphine was the most widely used, with a dramatic increase in oxycodone use, especially in the elderly. Conclusion The prevalence of analgesic use is high: approximately 31 million adults had at least 1 analgesic reimbursed in 2015. The most widely used analgesics were peripheral analgesics, far ahead of opioid analgesics.

Evolution of medication consumption in a working environment in France: Results of the four waves of the “Drugs and Work” study (1986–2016)

“…The study by Daveluy et al observed an increase in analgesic drug use in France from 2006 to 2015, with a higher prevalence in women compared to men all over the period 19 . At the whole adult population level, the annual prevalence of paracetamol use increased from 42.1% in 2006 to 52.6%, which confirms the trends observed in our study on a healthy worker population.…”

Potential inappropriate use of strong opioid analgesics in cancer outpatients during the last year of life in France and associated factors

“…This is the first study conducted in France regarding the risk of strong opioid PIU in terminally ill cancer patients at the general population level. Fentanyl was the most frequently used strong opioid analgesic in this population, followed by morphine and oxycodone, which is somewhat different from that observed in the general French population, with morphine at the first rank in 2015, followed by oxycodone and fentanyl at the same rank 34 . About 1/3 of cancer patients in the EGB were exposed to strong opioids in their last year of life, which is lower than in other studies 10,11 .…”

Acetaminophen poisonings in Chilean healthcare settings: a 20-year story that does not end

“…Groups 2 and 3 showed more notorious increases with 882 and 1,642 cases respectively over the 2008-2020 period. These findings may be explained by the wide availability of acetaminophen contained, as a single drug and in combination with other drugs, in marketed drug products, especially in the most recent years [21][22][23][24]. When including patients' gender, there were statistically significant differences when comparing Group 1 to Group 2…”