Opioid prescription rates for teens and young adults remain high, according to a new study

The rate of opioid prescribing remains high for adolescents and young adults, despite rising concerns about drug misuse by young people, a new study has found. Some types of care were found to have prescribing rates that exceeded 40 percent.

The research was published May 28 in the June edition of the journal Pediatrics.

Teenagers and young adults are at high risk for opioid misuse and even addiction from drugs prescribed for medical treatment. Moreover, prescriptions for these patients have been linked to future long-term opioid misuse as well as progression to heroin use. Recent studies have documented substantial increases in pediatric emergency room visits, hospital admissions, and deaths due to opioid use.

The study was based on data from 2005 to 2015 from the National Hospital Ambulatory Medical Care Survey and National Ambulatory Medical Care Survey. It includes about 52 million medical care visits that resulted in opioid prescriptions. Within that total were 29.4 million emergency department visits and 22.6 million visits to outpatient facilities.

The researchers, who were affiliated with Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, found that an average of 15 percent of youth emergency department visits resulted in opioid prescriptions over the period studied. The researchers also noted a small but significant decrease of about 4 percent of visits resulting in opioid prescriptions from 2005 to 2015. The outpatient prescription rate stayed about the same at 3 percent.

Among emergency visits, dental pain led to the highest opioid-prescribing rates. About 60 percent of teens and 58 percent of young adults who went to ER complaining of dental pain received a prescription for an opioid painkiller. Next in line were prescription rates of 47 percent for teens’ clavicle fractures and 38 percent for ankle fractures.

The data is based on visits, not individual patients, so it does not account for repeat visitors to the ER. The study does not include information about the duration and quantity of the medications dispensed nor does it assess the appropriateness of those prescriptions. Since the data is only through 2015, it does not reflect more recent public awareness and policy change initiatives regarding the prescribing of opioids.

These findings can help inform future efforts to educate care providers and examine pain management policies for these young patients.