ArticleJournal of the Royal Society of Medicine2022
Trends and characteristics of hospitalisations from the harmful use of opioids in England between 2008 and 2018: Population-based retrospective cohort study.
Article in Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 14 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
14 citing papers in PubMed, 28 citations in OpenAlex.
- Trends and Gender Disparities in Medical Narcotics Utilization in South Korea: A Nationwide Population-Based Study, 2019-2023.Pharmacoepidemiology and drug safety · 2026Article
- Examining variations in the prevalence of hazardous opioid prescribing across general practices in England: a cross-sectional study.BMJ quality & safety · 2026Article
- Trends in analgesia prescribing in primary care in Ireland and England between 2014 and 2022: A repeated cross-sectional study.British journal of clinical pharmacology · 2025Article
- Characteristics and risk factors of opioid poisoning in opioid-dependent individuals using their primary opioid of dependence: a registry-based study.International journal of emergency medicine · 2025Article
- Optimizing deprescribing of hospital-initiated opioids: a multi-level consensus study bridging evidence, expertise, and patient perspectives.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Article
- Association Between Opioid Use and Emergency Department Visits for Spine-Related Disorders.Journal of pain research · 2025Article
- Observational evidence linking psychotropic medicines to the dispensing of opioid agents in later life.Psychogeriatrics : the official journal of the Japanese Psychogeriatric Society · 2024Observational
- Characteristics of Patients Presenting at an Emergency Department for a Heroin Overdose vs Detoxification.Substance abuse and rehabilitation · 2024Article
- "I'm Not the Same Person Anymore": Thematic Analysis Exploring Experiences of Dependence to Prescribed Analgesics in Patients with Chronic Pain in the UK.Pain and therapy · 2023Article
- Preventable deaths involving opioids in England and Wales, 2013-2022: a systematic case series of coroners' reports.Journal of public health (Oxford, England) · 2023Article
- Trends in hospital admission related to poisoning by, narcotics and psychodysleptics and poisoning by antiepileptic, sedative-hypnotic, and antiparkinsonism drugs in England and Wales between April 1999 and April 2020: An ecological study.Saudi pharmaceutical journal : SPJ : the official publication of the Saudi Pharmaceutical Society · 2023Article
- Article
- Solutions to end pandemic and opioid crises.Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveTo examine the trends and characteristics of opioid-related hospital admissions in England over 10 years, and its burden for the National Health Service and public finances.
designPatient-level data from the Hospital Episode Statistics database to examine all opioid-related hospitalisations from 2008 to 2018, stratified by type of opioid admission and patient demographics.
settingAll National Health Service hospitals in England.
participantsPatients hospitalised from the harmful use of opioids.
main outcome measuresThe number of opioid-related hospitalisations, length of stay, in-hospital mortality, 30-day readmission rate and treatment costs.
resultsOpioid-related hospitalisations increased by 48.9%, from 10,805 admissions in 2008 to 16,091 admissions in 2018, with total treatment costs of £137 million. The growth in opioid-related hospitalisations was 21% above the corresponding rate for all other emergency admissions in England. Relative changes showed that hospitalisations increased most for individuals older than 55 years (160%), those living in the most affluent areas of England (93.8%), and suffering from four co-morbidities (627.6%) or more. Hospitals reduced mean patient length of stay from 2.8 days to 1.1 days over 10 years. Mean in-hospital mortality was 0.4% and mean 30-day readmission risk was 16.6%.
conclusionOpioid use is an increasing public health concern in England, though hospitalisation and mortality rates are less pronounced than in other countries. There are concerns about significant rises in hospitalisations from older, less deprived and sicker population groups. Our findings should prompt policymakers to go beyond monitoring mortality statistics when assessing the impacts of harmful use of opioids.
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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.