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To elucidate the patterns of opioid use after an emergency department (ED) visit for pain, investigators retrospectively compared future opioid prescriptions between patients who received and filled an opioid prescription from the ED and patients who did not receive an opioid prescription.
Among 2499 opioid-naive patients who presented to a single urban academic ED with acute pain during a 5-month period, 1079 (43%) received an opioid prescription at the visit and 775 filled it. Within 10 to 14 months after the visit, an opioid prescription was filled by 17% of those 775 patients versus 10% of 1420 patients who did not receive a prescription at the initial visit (adjusted odds ratio for recurrent use, 1.8).