Article Figures & Data
Figures
- Figure 1.
Probability of hydrocodone-combination prescriptions by rescheduling period (A) and by rescheduling period within medical specialty (B), patient diagnoses (C), patient sex (D), patient race/ethnicity (E), and chronic opioid therapy (COT) status (F). Note. For panel E, patients identified as “American Indian, Asian/Pacific Islander, and Middle Eastern” were combined with patients identified as “Other/Unknown” in the electronic-medical-record (EMR) to form “Other,” due to relatively low overall frequencies for these race/ethnicities. PCP, primary care physician.
- Figure 2.
Probability of hydrocodone-combination prescription by age in years (centered) for each rescheduling period.
Tables
- Table 1.
Patient and Opioid Prescription Characteristics for the Total Sample and by Chronic Opioid Therapy Status
Patient Characteristic Total Sample Patients Not on COT Patients on COT Across Rescheduling Pre-Rescheduling Post-Rescheduling Across Rescheduling Pre-Rescheduling Post-Rescheduling Across Rescheduling Pre-Rescheduling Post-Rescheduling Unique patients (n) 82432 42311 52602 65116 29737 37814 17316 12574 14788 Prescriptions per unique patient (M, SD) 2.43 (3.57) 2.04 (2.30) 2.17 (2.56) 1.16 (0.45) 1.10 (0.30) 1.14 (0.39) 7.21 (5.56) 4.27 (3.25) 4.81 (3.64) Patients w/ days' supply available (n)* 37328 22582 21862 23726 12837 11563 13602 9745 10299 Patient age in years (M, SD) 47.54 (14.48) 48.59 (14.35) 48.24 (14.35) 46.14 (14.67) 46.46 (14.68) 46.33 (14.65) 52.80 (12.42) 53.63 (12.12) 53.13 (12.27) Women (n, %) 46743 (56.70%) 24015 (56.76%) 30339 (57.68%) 36789 (56.50%) 16678 (56.09%) 21681 (57.34%) 9954 (57.48%) 7337 (58.65%) 8658 (58.55%) Race/ethnicity American Indian (n, %) 131 (0.16%) 53 (0.13%) 94 (0.18%) 106 (0.16%) 36 (0.12%) 76 (0.20%) 25 (0.14%) 17 (0.14%) 18 (0.12%) Asian/Pacific Islander (n, %) 2524 (3.06%) 1253 (2.96%) 1505 (2.86%) 2189 (3.36%) 1036 (3.48%) 1227 (3.25%) 335 (1.93%) 217 (1.73%) 278 (1.88%) Black/African American (n, %) 28720 (34.84%) 15582 (36.83%) 18852 (35.84%) 21187 (32.54%) 9970 (33.53%) 12251 (32.40%) 7533 (43.50%) 5612 (44.63%) 6601 (44.64%) Hispanic/Latino (n, %) 39930 (47.23%) 18638 (44.05%) 24449 (46.48%) 33082 (50.81%) 14566 (48.98%) 19520 (51.62%) 5848 (33.77%) 4072 (32.38%) 4929 (33.33%) Middle Eastern (n, %) 930 (1.13%) 421 (1.00%) 599 (1.14%) 810 (1.24%) 340 (1.14%) 499 (1.32%) 120 (0.69%) 81 (0.64%) 100 (0.68%) White/Caucasian (n, %) 10872 (13.19%) 6213 (14.68%) 6901 (13.12%) 7455 (11.45%) 3661 (12.31%) 4075 (10.78%) 3417 (19.73%) 2552 (20.3%) 2826 (19.11%) Other/Unknown (n, %) 325 (0.39%) 151 (0.36%) 202 (0.38%) 287 (0.44%) 128 (0.43%) 164 (0.43%) 38 (0.22%) 23 (0.18%) 36 (0.24%) Primary diagnosis Headaches/nerve (n, %) 1310 (1.59%) 740 (1.75%) 959 (1.82%) 821 (1.26%) 363 (1.22%) 505 (1.34%) 489 (2.82%) 377 (3%) 454 (3.07%) Neoplasms (n, %) 2001 (2.43%) 1143 (2.7%) 1324 (2.52%) 1199 (1.84%) 564 (1.9%) 696 (1.84%) 802 (4.63%) 579 (4.6%) 628 (4.25%) Infections (n, %) 3634 (4.41%) 1731 (4.09%) 2218 (4.22%) 3196 (4.91%) 1431 (4.81%) 1842 (4.87%) 438 (2.53%) 300 (2.39%) 376 (2.54%) Other (n, %) 9002 (10.92%) 4432 (10.47%) 5533 (10.52%) 7453 (11.45%) 3313 (11.14%) 4336 (11.47%) 1549 (8.95%) 1119 (8.9%) 1197 (8.09%) Fever/general symptoms (n, %) 10180 (12.35%) 5070 (11.98%) 6243 (11.87%) 8554 (13.14%) 3919 (13.18%) 4911 (12.99%) 1626 (9.39%) 1151 (9.15%) 1332 (9.01%) Dental (n, %) 11609 (14.08%) 5382 (12.72%) 7181 (13.65%) 10327 (15.86%) 4570 (15.37%) 6067 (16.04%) 1282 (7.40%) 812 (6.46%) 1114 (7.53%) Injuries (n, %) 12413 (15.06%) 6160 (14.56%) 7164 (13.62%) 10355 (15.90%) 4827 (16.23%) 5717 (15.12%) 2058 (11.88%) 1333 (10.6%) 1447 (9.78%) Musculoskeletal (n, %) 32283 (39.16%) 17653 (41.72%) 21980 (41.79%) 23211 (35.65%) 10750 (36.15%) 13740 (36.34%) 9072 (52.39%) 6903 (54.9%) 8240 (55.72%) Unique patients with MME (n) 37328 22582 21862 23726 12837 11563 13602 9745 10299 Highest MME/day/patient (M, SD) 21.92 (15.83) 21.74 (14.55) 21.26 (16.59) 19.92 (9.33) 19.98 (9.73) 19.64 (8.74) 25.41 (22.72) 24.06 (18.88) 23.07 (22.19) Highest MME/day/patient Category <20 (n, %) 20206 (54.13%) 12410 (54.96%) 12379 (56.62%) 14941 (62.97%) 8070 (62.87%) 7423 (64.20%) 5265 (38.71%) 4340 (44.54%) 4956 (48.12%) 20 to <50 (n, %) 16485 (44.16%) 9796 (43.38%) 9162 (41.91%) 8640 (36.42%) 4672 (36.39%) 4088 (35.35%) 7845 (57.68%) 5124 (52.58%) 5074 (49.27%) 50 to <90 (n, %) 553 (1.48%) 336 (1.49%) 272 (1.24%) 127 (0.54%) 85 (0.66%) 44 (0.38%) 426 (3.13%) 251 (2.58%) 228 (2.21%) >90 (n, %) 84 (0.23%) 40 (0.18%) 49 (0.22%) 18 (0.08%) 10 (0.08%) 8 (0.07%) 66 (0.49%) 30 (0.31%) 41 (0.40%) Prescription characteristics Total opioid prescriptions (n) 200695 86343 114332 75824 32631 43193 124851 53712 71139 Oncology (n, %) 5668 (2.82%) 2805 (3.25%) 2863 (2.50%) 937 (1.24%) 434 (1.33%) 503 (1.16%) 4731 (3.79%) 2371 (4.41%) 2360 (3.32%) Dental (n, %) 11477 (5.72%) 4703 (5.45%) 6774 (5.92%) 7247 (9.56%) 3007 (9.22%) 4240 (9.82%) 4230 (3.39%) 1696 (3.16%) 2534 (3.56%) Surgical (n, %) 22344 (11.12%) 9313 (10.79%) 13011 (11.38%) 10117 (13.34%) 4074 (12.49%) 6043 (13.99%) 12207 (9.78%) 5239 (9.75%) 6968 (9.79%) Medicine (n, %) 18618 (9.28%) 7875 (9.12%) 10743 (9.40%) 3087 (4.07%) 1326 (4.06%) 1761 (4.08%) 15531 (12.44%) 6549 (12.19%) 8982 (12.63%) Emergency (n, %) 40187 (20.03%) 18547 (21.48%) 21640 (18.93%) 27520 (36.29%) 12511 (38.34%) 15009 (34.75%) 12667 (10.15%) 6036 (11.24%) 6631 (9.32%) Primary care (n, %) 102401 (51.03%) 43100 (10.79%) 59301 (51.87%) 26916 (35.50%) 11279 (34.57%) 15637 (36.20%) 75485 (60.46%) 31821 (59.24%) 43664 (61.38%) Opioid prescribed Hydrocodone combination (n, %) 63353 (31.57%) 45289 (52.45%) 18064 (15.80%) 18701 (24.66%) 16489 (50.53%) 2212 (5.12%) 44652 (35.76%) 28800 (53.62%) 15852 (22.28%) Tramadol (n, %) 101101 (50.38%) 35549 (41.17%) 65552 (57.33%) 41449 (54.66%) 13827 (42.37%) 27622 (63.95%) 59652 (47.78%) 21722 (40.44%) 37930 (53.32%) Codeine combination (n, %) 36221 (18.05%) 5505 (6.38%) 30716 (26.87%) 15674 (20.67%) 2315 (7.09%) 13359 (30.93%) 20547 (16.46%) 3190 (5.94%) 17357 (24.40%) Total prescriptions with days' supply (n) 95126 49336 45790 26290 12845 12445 68836 35491 33345 Days' supply (M, SD)* 12.55 (8.50) 13.22 (9.02) 13.44 (8.94) 10.48 (7.79) 10.66 (8.09) 10.49 (7.66) 16.16 (8.50) 16.61 (9.06) 16.75 (9.10) MME/day (M, SD) 21.13 (15.71) 21.53 (15.21) 20.69 (16.22) 19.70 (9.49) 19.87 (10.22) 19.50 (8.60) 21.68 (17.48) 22.18 (16.71) 21.13 (18.25) MME/prescription (M, SD) 316.89 (308.80) 321.19 (299.44) 312.26 (318.51) 190.97 (160.85) 196.33 (158.43) 185.00 (163.29) 364.98 (336.93) 369.90 (326.19) 359.75 (347.94) MME/day category (prescription level) <20 (n, %) 54738 (57.54%) 27677 (56.10%) 27061 (59.10%) 16889 (64.24%) 8797 (63.54%) 8092 (65.02%) 37849 (54.98%) 18880 (53.20%) 18969 (56.89%) 20 to < 0 (n, %) 38906 (40.90%) 20810 (42.18%) 18096 (39.52%) 9250 (35.18%) 4950 (35.75%) 4300 (34.55%) 29656 (43.08%) 15860 (44.69%) 13796 (41.37%) 50 to <90 (n, %) 1308 (1.38%) 753 (1.53%) 555 (1.21%) 132 (0.50%) 87 (0.63%) 45 (0.36%) 1176 (1.71%) 666 (1.88%) 510 (1.53%) >90 (n, %) 174 (0.18%) 96 (0.19%) 78 (0.17%) 19 (0.07%) 11 (0.08%) 8 (0.06%) 155 (0.23%) 85 (0.24%) 70 (0.21%) COT, chronic opioid therapy; M, mean; MME, morphine milligram equivalency; SD, standard deviation.
↵* Patients had at least one non-missing value for days' supply for an average to be calculated at the prescription level.
