ArticleMedical care research and review : MCRR2026
Do Must-Access Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMPs) Affect Pain and Impairment Outcomes in Older Adults?
Article in Medical care research and review : MCRR, 2026. 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.
- A Portable, Patient-Possessed Health Record: Architecture for Care Coordination as an Alternative to Centralized Data Aggregation.Pharmacy (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Impact of the Raqeeb narcotic controlling system on tramadol prescriptions in surgical patients: A pre-post implementation study.Saudi journal of anaesthesiaArticle
Corrections and comments
- Update of
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
Abstract
State policies requiring clinicians to review prescription drug monitoring program (PDMP) databases have proliferated. However, patient advocates suggest these policies may adversely affect patients with chronic pain. This study aimed to quantify the effect of must-access PDMP implementation on pain and physical impairment. Using panel data on 34,431 older adults from the Health and Retirement Study (2002-2021), we conducted a heterogeneity-robust difference-in-differences analysis. Must-access PDMPs were associated with a 1.65 (95% CI: 0.43 to 2.87) percentage point increase in frequent pain during the two-year window surrounding policy implementation and a peak 3.52 (95% CI: 0.88 to 6.16) percentage point increase in the second post-policy period, after which the effect dissipated. Effects on impairment outcomes were positive but statistically insignificant. Findings suggest that must-access PDMP policies may increase numbers of older adults reporting frequent pain in the early policy implementation years, though they were not associated with statistically detectable changes in physical impairment.
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.