Trends in opioid prescribing in Estonia (2011‐2017)

Abstract

Our objective was to examine the trends and variation in opioid prescribing in Estonia from 2011 to 2017. This retrospective cross‐sectional study is based on a nationwide prescription medicines database. We stratified the analysis by treatment indication (cancer vs noncancer pain). Between 2011 and 2017, annual opioid prescribing rates increased by 67% (from 82.9 to 138.6 prescriptions per 1000 population). The annual number of prescriptions per patient did not change substantially (from 2.94 in 2011 to 2.87 in 2017), and was higher among cancer patients (5.07 vs 2.67 annual prescriptions per cancer and noncancer patients, respectively, in 2017). The use of the most potent opioids (morphine, fentanyl) was higher in noncancer than in cancer patients. The use of prescription opioids is low, and raises concern about the potential undertreatment of cancer pain, in parallel with misuse of opioids for either noncancer pain or diversion.

Opioid analgesics prescribing trends 2010–2019 in Slovenia: National database study

“…In terms of consumption, our results report a DID (DDD per 1000 inhabitants per day) between 7.1 and 6.7 for all OA, for tramadol between 5.7 and 5.6 and for strong opioids between 1.5 and 1.2 DID, which is 10x lower compared to Ireland (Norris et al., 2021) and 5x lower compared to Spain (Hurtado et al., 2020). However, our results report a higher consumption compared to Estonia, and seem to be close to the recently published data from Hungary (Engi et al., 2022; Uusküla et al., 2020) A similar regional division was observed by Ju et al., where the overall consumption of OA (ambulatory and hospital use) in Slovenia is half of the consumption in Western and Central Europe, but substantially higher than the consumption in Eastern European countries (Ju et al., 2022).…”

“…Previous reports showed differences in prevalence and consumption of AO among European regions and countries. The reported annual prevalence is lower than the reported prevalence in Ireland (Norris et al, 2021), and Finland (Muller et al, 2019), but higher than the reported prevalence in Estonia (Uusküla et al, 2020).…”

“…Previous reports showed differences in prevalence and consumption of AO among European regions and countries. The reported annual prevalence is lower than the reported prevalence in Ireland (Norris et al., 2021), and Finland (Muller et al., 2019), but higher than the reported prevalence in Estonia (Uusküla et al., 2020). In terms of consumption, our results report a DID (DDD per 1000 inhabitants per day) between 7.1 and 6.7 for all OA, for tramadol between 5.7 and 5.6 and for strong opioids between 1.5 and 1.2 DID, which is 10x lower compared to Ireland (Norris et al., 2021) and 5x lower compared to Spain (Hurtado et al., 2020).…”

Prescribing Pattern of Analgesics in Colombia. Are there Differences between Capital Cities and Municipalities? A Cross-Sectional Study

“…Opioids are widely used in the treatment of acute pain, cancer pain, and chronic non-cancer pain [ 4 , 6 , 9 ]. The use of these analgesics has been increasing [ 37 ], especially in patients without cancer compared with those with neoplasias (75% vs. 29%) [ 38 ]. However, there is a growing controversy regarding their use to treat non-oncological pain because this recommendation is based on limited evidence and because their long-term effectiveness is poor [ 37 ].…”