Observational studyJournal of Alzheimer's disease : JAD2019
Geographical Variation in Opioid Use in Elderly Patients with Dementia: A Nationwide Study.
Observational study in Journal of Alzheimer's disease : JAD, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 11 papers.
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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.
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Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 23 citations in OpenAlex.
- Risk of hospitalization and opioid use in older people with dementia.BMC geriatrics · 2026Article
- Comparison of opioid use among long-term care residents in Ontario and Alberta, Canada: A multi-jurisdictional, repeated cross-sectional study.Canadian journal of pain = Revue canadienne de la douleur · 2025Article
- Prevalence of Opioid Use in Nursing Homes Over the Last Decade: A Systematic Literature Review.The Journal of pharmacy technology : jPT : official publication of the Association of Pharmacy Technicians · 2024Article
- Pain, Opioid Analgesics, and Cognition: A Conceptual Framework in Older Adults.Pain medicine (Malden, Mass.) · 2023Article
- Geographical variation in compulsory hospitalisation - ethical challenges.BMC health services research · 2022Article
- Correlates of Opioid Use Among Ontario Long-Term Care Residents and Variation by Pain Frequency and Intensity: A Cross-sectional Analysis.Drugs & aging · 2022Article
- The role of geographic information system and global positioning system in dementia care and research: a scoping review.International journal of health geographics · 2022Article
- Opioids in the Elderly Patients with Cognitive Impairment: A Narrative Review.Pain and therapy · 2022Review
- Patient safety incidents involving transdermal opioids: data from the Danish Patient Safety Database.International journal of clinical pharmacy · 2021Article
- Article
- Are Chronic Pain Patients with Dementia Being Undermedicated?Journal of pain research · 2021Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundWe recently reported frequent use of opioids among elderly with dementia. Discrepancies in clinical practice may in part explain the higher use of opioids in elderly with dementia, which geographical variation may be able to clarify.
objectiveTo investigate geographical variation in opioid use in elderly with dementia compared to elderly without dementia.
methodsRegister-based cross-sectional study in the entire elderly (≥65 years) population of Denmark in 2015. Data included place of residence, prescriptions, and discharge diagnoses from hospital contacts. Prevalence of opioid use among elderly with (n = 36,014) and without dementia (n = 1,011,787) was compared nationwide across the five Danish regions using logistic regression analysis and for the 98 municipalities using age and sex standardization.
results32.5% of elderly with dementia and 16.9% without were treated with an opioid in 2015. For home-living elderly with dementia, there was a 4-fold difference in opioid use (9.4 to 36.8%) between municipalities compared to a 1.6-fold (12.7 to 20.2%) difference for elderly without. In nursing home residents there was a 2-fold difference (dementia: 26.5 to 55.2%; no dementia: 31.8 to 60.4%). Differences between the five regions were minor.
conclusionOpioid use in elderly with dementia was frequent and almost twice as high compared to elderly without dementia, which may challenge patient safety. The pronounced geographical variations at municipality level, particularly among elderly with dementia, indicate differences in the approach to treatment of chronic pain in primary care. Our study suggests that more guidance on treatment of pain in elderly with dementia is needed.
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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.