Prescription of opioid analgesics in primary, specialized, and hospital care in Puertollano Sanitary Area. Trends in 2001-2006

Objectives: to describe the trends of use for opioid analgesics in the Area of Puertollano during the period 2001-2005, and to evaluate it as an outcome measure after launching a Palliative Care Program in 2006. Method: an analysis of the five strong opioids most commonly prescribed. Data on use were obtained from the Pharmacy Service computer files. The prescription of opioid analgesics in primary, specialized, and hospital care were assessed and expressed as DHD (Defined Daily Dose per 1,000 inhabitants per day) for the two first sanitary levels, and as DDD (Defined Daily Doses)/100 hospital stays for the third one, from 2001 to 2006. Results: there is a gradual increase in the overall use of opioids that moves from 0.68 to 2.89 DHDs in primary care. The prescription of transdermal release opioids, which increased from 0.51 DHDs in 2001 to 2.80 in 2006, should be highlighted. This represents 93% of total DHDs this year. DHDs prescribed by medical specialists increased in a more moderate way, from 0.02 to 0.06, and decreased slightly in 2006. Only oral morphine DHDs increased sharply in the past year, from 0.0003 DHDs in 2005 to 0.0064 DHDs in 2006. Here, the DHDs for drugs administered in patches account for almost the entire group too (99.2% in 2001), although its share declined slightly in 2006 (90.2%). In the hospital setting no correlation between DDDs used, either overall or for each drug, and number of hospital stays was seen. However, in 2006 there was a significant increase in global consumption, particularly for morphine (60.8% of total DDDs/100 hospital stays), exceeding for the first time those of transdermal release opioids (31.6%) without a significant variation of case-mix warrants. Conclusions: there is continued growth in DHDs prescribed by both specialists and primary care physicians. However, hospital use evolves in an erratic manner. This behavior seems to be changing since palliative care teams were implemented.