Abstract

A HOSPITAL BASED INTERVENTIONAL STUDY TO ASSESS IMPACT OF PATIENT EDUCATION ON USAGE, HANDLING, STORAGE AND DISPOSAL OF OPIOID ANALGESICS

Sandhra R. Nair*, Satish S., Ramakrishna Shabaraya A.

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Abstract

Opioids are narcotic analgesics prescribed to treat persistent and severe pain. The recent increase in opioid overdoses, pain tolerance, and misuse suggests that it is important to provide patients with the best possible education after discharge. The findings suggest that current practices related to opioid medication sharing, storage, disposal, and education on these topics are sub-optimal. This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of patient education on the storage, use, handling, and disposal of opioid analgesics. A prospective interventional study was conducted over 6 months. Out of 180 study participants, 90 served as control subjects while the remaining subjects received education, and data were collected before and after the education. During the study, it was found that more than half of the study participants did not lock the storage place for opioids. After the intervention, opioids were stored appropriately by study participants.About 70% of study participants planned to use opioids for mild pain, which decreased significantly after the education. It was found that 60% of study participants planned to share their prescribed opioids with others, which reduced after the education to 27% ultimately decreasing the likelihood of opioid misuse. In the pre-intervention study, approximately 65% of study participants were found to improperly dispose opioids by throwing them in household trash. In contrast, postintervention revealed majority 75.5% of participants followed the proper disposal method. The study found that patient education improved opioid use, handling, storage, and disposal among patients and ultimately leading to a descrease in opioid misuse, and addiction.

Keywords: Opioid analgesics, drug storage, drug disposal, pain medicine, misuse.