A history of substance use disorder is one of three factors likely to identify patients at higher risk for prescription opioid addiction, according to a study published in JAMA Network Open.
The other two factors are:
• Certain mental health diagnoses, such as personality disorders
• Accompanying prescription of certain psychiatric medications, such as atypical antipsychotics
Researchers examined the Medline and Embase databases for articles published from January 1946 to November 2018 that focused on risks of prescription opioid addiction. They analyzed studies that included compared symptoms, signs and risk factors for patients who developed prescription opioid addiction and those who did not.
They identified 1,287 studies, of which six were included in the qualitative synthesis and four were included in the quantitative synthesis. The four included in the quantitative synthesis were all retrospective, including 2.8 million patients with 4,470 cases that met the researchers' definitions of prescription opioid addiction.
Study authors said that "few quality studies were available, and no symptoms, signs or screening tools were particularly useful for identifying people at lower risk" of prescription opioid addiction.