ArticlePain medicine (Malden, Mass.)2025
Association of opioid tapering with pain-related emergency department visits, hospitalizations, and primary care visits: a retrospective cohort study.
Article in Pain medicine (Malden, Mass.), 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed.
- Long-Term Opioid Therapy Tapering and Risk of Substance Use Disorder and Overdose: Differences by Opioid Dose and Duration.Journal of general internal medicine · 2026Article
- Understanding Practitioner Comfort and Educational Priorities for Safe Opioid Prescribing: A Repeated Cross-Sectional Study.Journal of pain research · 2026Article
- Risks for Adverse Events by Sex and Age After Prescription Opioid Dose Reduction: A Secondary Analysis Across 8 U.S. Health Systems.American journal of preventive medicine · 2025Observational
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveTapering of chronic opioids has increased, with subsequent reports of exacerbated pain among patients who tapered. We aimed to evaluate the association between opioid dose tapering and subsequent pain-related healthcare utilization (emergency department [ED] visits, hospitalizations and primary care visits). DESIGN, SETTING, AND SUBJECTS: We conducted a retrospective cohort study from years 2015-2019 using data from the Optum Labs Data Warehouse that contains de-identified retrospective administrative claims data for commercial and Medicare Advantage enrollees in the United States. Adults aged ≥18 years who were prescribed stable doses of opioids, ≥50 morphine milligram equivalents (MME)/day, during a 12-month baseline period.
methodsTapering was defined as ≥15% relative reduction in mean daily opioid dose during one of 6 overlapping 60-day periods. Tapered patient-periods were subclassified as tapered-and-continued (MME > 0) vs tapered-and-discontinued (MME = 0). We modeled monthly counts of visits for pain diagnoses up to 12 months after cohort entry using negative binomial regression as a function of tapering, baseline utilization, and patient level-covariates.
resultsAmong 47 033 patients, 13 793 patients tapered. Compared to no taper, any taper was associated with more ED visits for pain (adjusted incidence rate ratio [aIRR] 1.21, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.11-1.30), tapered then continued status was associated with more ED visits (aIRR 1.23, CI: 1.14-1.32) and hospitalizations (aIRR 1.14, CI: 1.03-1.27) f-or pain, and tapered-and-discontinued was associated with fewer primary care visits for pain (aIRR 0.68, CI: 0.61-0.76).
conclusionsThese associations suggest that opioid tapering may lead to increased emergency and hospital utilization for acute pain and possibly a decreased perceived need for primary care for those whose opioids were discontinued.
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