ArticleCureus2022
Methadone Prescribing for Pain Management in Pennsylvania per the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program, 2016-2020.
Article in Cureus, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 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
2 citing papers in PubMed.
- The impact of opioid prescribing guidelines on opioid dispensation: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Canadian journal of pain = Revue canadienne de la douleur · 2026Review
- Analgesic methadone prescribing in community health centers among patients with chronic pain.Journal of opioid managementObservational
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.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Introduction Methadone is a schedule II opioid traditionally used to treat opioid use disorder (OUD) and chronic pain. However, following the identification of its contribution to opioid overdose deaths, methadone has become less commonly used for chronic pain indications. In Pennsylvania (PA), prescribers are required to report methadone prescriptions written for pain indications to the prescription drug monitoring program (PDMP), which is an electronic database that enhances the tracking and reporting of prescription data. The primary objective of our study was to describe the geographic methadone prescribing trends recorded by the PA PDMP in order to report methadone's current use for only pain indications. Methods State- and county-level methadone prescription data summaries recorded by the PA PDMP for each calendar quarter from August 2016 through March 2020 were collected from the PA Department of Health. The metric reported per quarter consisted of the total number of methadone prescriptions dispensed for pain indications unrelated to OUD. Results A total of 341,949 methadone prescriptions were dispensed in PA from the third quarter (Q3) of 2016 to the first quarter (Q1) of 2020 (range = 1106) with an overall 38.7% decrease in methadone prescriptions and a change in the rate of 85.97 per 100,000 population. The counties with the five highest prescription totals were Philadelphia, Allegheny, Bucks, Montgomery, and York (range = 46,969), and the counties with the five highest rates per 100,000 were Montour, Green, Columbia, Northumberland, and Forest (range = 964). Conclusions Methadone prescribing for pain management unrelated to OUD has decreased in PA from 2016 to 2020 per the PA PDMP. However, it is still prescribed in appreciable amounts for pain management. Further studies are required to understand the prescribing rationale and potential areas for harm reduction interventions.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What 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.