Swiss researchers predict risk of opioid addiction
Published: Thursday, Dec 28th 2023, 15:40
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Swiss researchers have developed a new prediction model for opioid addiction. The model, presented in the specialist journal "Pain", estimates whether patients tend to become dependent on opioids or not.
In this way, preventive measures can be offered to people at increased risk, as the Cantonal Hospital Baden (KSB) wrote in a press release on Thursday.
"There is a public health crisis of opioid abuse and addiction in the United States, and opioid prescriptions are also rising sharply in Europe," the researchers wrote in the study, which appeared in the current issue of the journal.
The study is based on data from the health insurer Helsana. The researchers from Baden Cantonal Hospital, the University and University Hospital of Zurich, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich) and the University of Bern searched data from over 250,000 patients for factors that favored long-term use of opioid painkillers.
Age and starting dosage
These include the age and gender of the patient, the starting dosage, the painkiller itself, any multiple illnesses and previous opioid use. According to the study, women are slightly more prone to opioid dependence than men, people over the age of 80 are more likely to take painkillers containing opioids over a longer period of time than younger people and people with multiple illnesses are more likely to do so than those without.
The researchers used these factors to create a statistical prediction model. "Based on our study, we can use various factors to calculate the probability of long-term use of these painkillers when opioids are first prescribed," says Maria Wertli from the KSB and the University of Bern in the KSB press release.
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