Opioids work against severe pain but the risks of side effects and addiction are high. In the USA alone, 26 people die every day from overdoses. Now researchers in an international collaboration have investigated how common opioid prescriptions are for osteoarthritis patients in Sweden. It emerged that every fourth patient was prescribed opioids at some point between November 2014 and October 2015.
“The results show an alarmingly high rate of opioid prescriptions for osteoarthritis patients”, says Martin Englund, professor at Lund University and physician at Skåne University Hospital who led the study in collaboration with researchers from Denmark and the United Kingdom.
