Commentary on Hill et al.: Breaking down barriers-increasing access to lifesaving opioid use disorder medications to save lives

Association of Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs With Opioid Prescribing and Overdose in Adolescents and Young Adults

STUDY OBJECTIVE

Prescription opioid use is associated with substance-related adverse outcomes among adolescents and young adults through a pathway of prescribing, diversion and misuse, and addiction and overdose. Assessing the effect of current prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs) on opioid prescribing and overdoses will further inform strategies to reduce opioid-related harms.

METHODS

We performed interrupted time series analyses to measure the association between state-level implementation of PDMPs with annual opioid prescribing and opioid-related overdoses in adolescents (13 to 18 years) and young adults (19 to 25 years) between 2008 and 2019. We focused on PDMPs that included mandatory reviews by providers. Data were obtained from a commercial insurance company.

RESULTS

Among 9,344,504 adolescents and young adults, 1,405,382 (15.0%) had a dispensed opioid prescription, and 6,262 (0.1%) received treatment for an opioid-related overdose. Mandated PDMP review was associated with a 4.2% (95% CI, 1.9% to 6.4%) reduction in annual opioid dispensations among adolescents and a 7.8% (95% CI, 4.7% to 10.9%) annual reduction among young adults. For opioid-related overdoses, mandated PDMP review was associated with a 16.1% (95% CI, 3.8 to 26.7) and 15.9% (95% CI, 7.6 to 23.4) reduction in annual opioid overdoses for adolescents and young adults, respectively.

CONCLUSION

PDMPs were associated with sustained reductions in opioid prescribing and overdoses in adolescents and young adults. Although these findings support the value of mandated PDMPs as part of ongoing strategies to reduce opioid overdoses, further studies with prospective study designs are needed to characterize the effect of these programs fully.