1. Sleepless in Arthritis: Opioid and Benzodiazepine
Prescribing in Chronic Non-Cancer Pain
K Keshavjee1,2,3, AD Furlan3,R Brahmbhatt1,K Mirza1,KVassanji1
1InfoClin Inc,Toronto,ON 2University ofVictoria,Victoria,BC, 3 University ofToronto
Presented at NAPCRG 2015,Cancun
The Questions
CPCSSN Facts
How do physicians prescribe opioids and
benzodiazepines for chronic non-cancer pain?
Is there a relationship between these
prescriptions and age group or diagnosis?
Results Conclusion
Funding for this publication was provided by the Alternative Funding Plan (AFP) Innovation Fund The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the views of the AFP
• 8 Provinces, 1 Territory
• 11 Practice Based
Research Networks
• 1000 Physicians
• 1,000,000 patients
• 12 EMR systems
• Clean up data using medication and diagnoses
cleaning algorithms
• Prepare dataset for graphical & statistical
analysis
• Denominator: Patients seen in last 2 years
• Use graphical visualization to detect trends
Future Directions
Validate the findings
Conduct statistical analysis
Publish
Methods
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
25%
24-‐63
64-‐83
84-‐113
%
Pa%ents
Age
Group
Opioid
and
Benzodiazepine
Prescribing
as
Func%on
of
Age
and
Diagnosis
FM
-‐
Opioids
FM
-‐
Benzodiazepines
LBP
-‐
Opioids
LBP
-‐
Benzodiazepines
OA
-‐
Opioids
OA
-‐
Benzodiazepines
The patients with the most prescriptions
for opioids and benzodiazepines are
between 64 and 83 years of age.
Elderly patients with OA are prescribed
more benzodiazepines per-capita than
patients with other chronic non-cancer
pain conditions.
0%
10%
20%
30%
24-‐63
64-‐83
84-‐113
%
Pa%ents
Age
Group
Prevalence
of
Disease
by
Age
N
=
124
031
Fibromyalgia
Dorsopathy
OsteoarthriEs
FM – Fibromyalgia LBP – Dorsopathy OA --Osteoarthritis
