ArticleThe American journal of pharmacy benefits
Healthcare Costs Associated With Chronic Opioid Use and Fibromayalgia Syndrome.
Article in The American journal of pharmacy benefits. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed, 6 citations in OpenAlex.
- Healthcare use and its variation in people with fibromyalgia: a systematic review protocol.Primary health care research & development · 2025Article
- Impact of Pain Severity and Opioid Use on Health Care Resource Utilization and Costs Among Patients with Knee and Hip Osteoarthritis.Journal of managed care & specialty pharmacy · 2019Article
- Illuminating an Invisible Epidemic: A Systemic Review of the Clinical and Economic Benefits of Early Diagnosis and Treatment in Inflammatory Disease and Related Syndromes.Journal of clinical medicine · 2019Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundFibromyalgia (FM) is an idiopathic, functional syndrome characterized by chronic, widespread pain and diffuse tenderness. This disorder affects more than 6 million patients in the United States and is associated with significant clinical and economic burdens.
objectivesThe objectives of this study were to: 1) estimate the costs associated with a FM diagnosis; and 2) estimate the impact of chronic opioid use on the costs of FM patients. RESEARCH
designCase-control study.
methodsSubjects were identified in a large nationally representative database of commercially insured patients. Propensity score-matched analyses included 445,912 FM-control pairs in the first analysis, while the second analysis included 48,333 chronic opioid users with the FM-control pairs. Primary outcomes of interest were the medical and prescription costs compared between matched pairs, based on propensity for being a case as evidenced by coefficients obtained from a first-stage logistic regression. Patient characteristics considered include: state of residence, diagnosing provider type, comorbid conditions, and concurrent medication use.
resultsWhen controlling for propensity to receive a FM diagnosis, the actual diagnosis has a small effect on medical (-$83.54 [95% CI, -152.55 to -16.53]) and prescription ($120.31 [95% CI, 109.98-130.62]) costs. However, the effect of chronic opioid use in FM patients on medical ($9094.05 [95% CI, 8924.79-9263.31]) and prescription ($3391.81 [95% CI, 3368.84-3414.79]) costs is much more substantial.
conclusionsWhile the differences seen in FM patients and controls are marginal, those attributed to chronic opioid use in these patients are significantly higher. Chronic opioid therapy to treat FM is a practice based not on evidence available to practitioners, but on other variables.
Identifiers
28553437PMC5444874W3004926084What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.