American Doctors Less Likely to Prescribe Opioid Painkillers
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Ridofranz/iStock/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — A new survey found that about half of American doctors are less likely to prescripe opioid pain relievers compared to one year ago.
According to the survey, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Internal Medicine, prescription painkillers are the second most-abused category of drugs. Between 2000 and 2010, in fact, prescriptions for opioid painkillers nearly doubled. Still, when surveyed, 45 percent of physicians said they were less likely to prescribe those drugs compared to a year ago.
The survey was conducted by researchers from the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University. Ninety percent of physicians surveyed said that prescription drug use was either a “moderate” or “big” problem in their communities. About 90 percent also said that opioids were being overused in clinical practice, potentially resulting in adverse effects including addiction and deaths.
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