Does Inpatient Opioid Use Lead to Outpatient Opioid Use?

Whether inpatient administration of opioids correlates with long-term outpatient opioid use is unclear. Investigators retrospectively evaluated postdischarge outpatient use of opioids among nearly 150,000 previously opioid-naive (i.e., no prescribed use in the 1 year prior to admission) medical and surgical inpatients at 12 community and academic hospitals in a single Pennsylvania healthcare system during 5 years.

Almost half of patients received opioids during their hospital stays, and nonopioid analgesics were used infrequently (<25% of the time) prior to opioid administration. In adjusted analysis (excluding opioid administrations within 24 hours following surgery), patients who received opioids during their hospital stay, compared with t…