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Opioid-related deaths in the U.S. more than doubled from 2005 to 2015. To determine whether this is a function of physician overprescribing, investigators examined two nationally representative, annual surveys of adult outpatient and hospital prescription data from 2005 to 2015.
New opioid prescriptions without a concurrent benzodiazepine prescription increased nonsignificantly from 2005 to 2010 and then decreased nonsignificantly until 2015. In contrast, new opioid prescriptions to patients also taking benzodiazepines increased significantly from 2005 to 2010 and then decreased significantly (by about 50%) by 2015. After adjusting for demographic factors, comorbidities, and diagnoses associated with pain, patients taking benzodiazepines wer…