ArticlePharmacoepidemiology and drug safety2022
International trends in prescription opioid sales among developed and developing economies, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-sectional analysis of 66 countries.
Article in Pharmacoepidemiology and drug safety, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.
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10 citing papers in PubMed, 14 citations in OpenAlex.
- Changes in the consumption of immediate-release fentanyl between 2018 and 2022 in the province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife after the implementation of regulatory measures by health authorities.Naunyn-Schmiedeberg's archives of pharmacology · 2026Article
- Trends in prescription opioid use for pain in Canada: a population-based repeated cross-sectional study of 6 provinces.CMAJ : Canadian Medical Association journal = journal de l'Association medicale canadienne · 2025Article
- Trends in prescription opioid use in Europe: A DARWIN EUFrontiers in pharmacology · 2025Article
- Global and regional burdens of opioid use disorder from 1990 to 2021, with future forecasts to 2050: a systematic analysis for the global burden of disease study 2021.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- Opioid prescribing in the Netherlands during the COVID-19 pandemic: a national register-based study.BMJ open · 2024Article
- Changes in opioid prescribing during the COVID-19 pandemic in England: an interrupted time-series analysis in the OpenSAFELY-TTP cohort.The Lancet. Public health · 2024Article
- Trends in medicine utilisation in public and private healthcare facilities before and during COVID-19: a nationwide analysis of medicine procurement and sales data, 2018-2022.Journal of pharmaceutical policy and practice · 2024Article
- Opioid-related harms and care impacts of conventional and AI-based prescription management strategies: insights from leveraging agent-based modeling and machine learning.Frontiers in digital health · 2023Article
- The spatial linkage mechanism: medical level, public health security, and economic climate from 19 OECD EU countries.Frontiers in public health · 2023Article
- International trends in prescription opioid sales among developed and developing economies, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic: A cross-sectional analysis of 66 countries.Pharmacoepidemiology and drug safety · 2022Article
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
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No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeWe sought to compare trends in opioid purchasing between developed and developing economies to understand patterns of opioid consumption, and how they were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
methodsWe conducted a retrospective cross-sectional study of retail pharmacy opioid sales from 66 jurisdictions between July 2014 and August 2020. We measured monthly population-adjusted rate of opioid units purchased, stratified by development group and country, and used interventional time series analysis to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on rates of opioid purchasing among developed and developing economies separately.
resultsRates of opioid purchasing were generally higher among developed economies, although trends differed considerably by development group. Rates of opioid purchasing declined 23.8% (95% confidence interval [CI] -34.7% to 3.6%) in the 5 years prior to the pandemic in developed economies, but rose 15.2% (95% CI 4.6%-35.6%) among developing economies. In March 2020 there was a short-term increase in the rate of opioid purchases in both developing (10.9 units/1000 population increase; p < 0.0001) and developed (145.5 units/1000 population; p < 0.0001) economies, which was followed immediately by reduced opioid purchasing of a similar scale in April-May 2020 (-14.8 and -171.8 units/1000 population in developing and developed economies, respectively; p < 0.0001).
conclusionThe COVID-19 pandemic led to disruptions in opioid purchasing around the world; although the specific impacts varied both between and among developed and developing economies. With global variation in opioid use, there is a need to monitor these trajectories to ensure the safety of opioid use, and adequate access to pain management globally.
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