A Comparison of Prescriber-Based Opioid Addiction Prevention Strategies: An Integrative Literature Review

Background: Opioid addiction causes many preventable deaths across the United States. Many recommendations to prevent opioid addiction have been made, however, many recommendations have not been fully evaluated for efficacy. This has led to a gap in knowledge for providers and healthcare systems to make informed decisions on how to reduce opioid addiction.

Objectives: This study explores different prescriber-based opioid prevention strategies, providing an analysis and ranking for the strategies that most effectively reduce opioid abuse and exposure. Additionally, the analysis provides recommendations for future research.

Methods: An integrative literature review was conducted to investigate three opioid abuse prevention strategies: prescription drug monitoring programs, physician continuing education, and risk assessment screening tools. Information has been organized according to prevention strategy type and presented in a data matrix table.

Results: Most studies (4 out of 5) that examined risk assessment screening tool concluded that their use resulted in statistically significant reductions in opioid abuse. Prescription drug monitoring programs had more mixed results but overall resulted in modest reductions. Physician continuing education resulted in very few statistically significant outcomes.

Discussion: The opioid abuse prevention strategies have the greatest to the least impact in the following order 1) risk assessment screening tools 2) prescription drug monitoring programs, and 3) prescriber continuing education.

Keywords: Opioids, opioid abuse prevention, opioid addiction prevention, prescription drug monitoring programs, physician continuing education, risk assessment screening tool, risk assessment questionnaire, opioid abuse prevention strategies