ArticleRheumatology (Oxford, England)2024
Trends for opioid prescribing and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in patients with rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases between 2006 and 2021.
Article in Rheumatology (Oxford, England), 2024. 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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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 14 citations in OpenAlex.
- Factors associated with long-term opioid use among patients with axial spondyloarthritis or psoriatic arthritis who initiate opioids.Rheumatology (Oxford, England) · 2025Article
- Pharmacological pain management in patients with rheumatoid arthritis: a narrative literature review.BMC medicine · 2025Review
- The prescribing of opioids for chronic non-cancer pain in the menopausal and postmenopausal population: a drug utilisation study in the UK.BJGP open · 2025Article
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- Article
- 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
- Article
- Pain management in people with inflammatory arthritis: British Society for Rheumatology guideline scope.Rheumatology advances in practice · 2024Review
- A Time-varying Analysis of General Practice Prescribing in the COVID-19 Era: Lessons from Prescription Dynamics in a Pandemic.In vivo (Athens, Greece)Article
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Authors and funding
8 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveTo investigate opioid prescribing trends and assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on opioid prescribing in rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases (RMDs).
methodsAdult patients with RA, PsA, axial spondyloarthritis (AxSpA), SLE, OA and FM with opioid prescriptions between 1 January 2006 and 31 August 2021 without cancer in UK primary care were included. Age- and gender-standardized yearly rates of new and prevalent opioid users were calculated between 2006 and 2021. For prevalent users, monthly measures of mean morphine milligram equivalents (MME)/day were calculated between 2006 and 2021. To assess the impact of the pandemic, we fitted regression models to the monthly number of prevalent opioid users between January 2015 and August 2021. The time coefficient reflects the trend pre-pandemic and the interaction term coefficient represents the change in the trend during the pandemic.
resultsThe study included 1 313 519 RMD patients. New opioid users for RA, PsA and FM increased from 2.6, 1.0 and 3.4/10 000 persons in 2006 to 4.5, 1.8 and 8.7, respectively, in 2018 or 2019. This was followed by a fall to 2.4, 1.2 and 5.9, respectively, in 2021. Prevalent opioid users for all RMDs increased from 2006 but plateaued or dropped beyond 2018, with a 4.5-fold increase in FM between 2006 and 2021. In this period, MME/day increased for all RMDs, with the highest for FM (≥35). During COVID-19 lockdowns, RA, PsA and FM showed significant changes in the trend of prevalent opioid users. The trend for FM increased pre-pandemic and started decreasing during the pandemic.
conclusionThe plateauing or decreasing trend of opioid users for RMDs after 2018 may reflect the efforts to tackle rising opioid prescribing in the UK. The pandemic led to fewer people on opioids for most RMDs, providing reassurance that there was no sudden increase in opioid prescribing during the pandemic.
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