About a quarter of emergency department patients don’t know prescription opiods can be addictive, according to a new study.
The remainder of patients interviewed say the opposite—that they think painkillers can lead to addiction. The findings suggest there is a range of beliefs, attitudes, and even misconceptions about this potentially dangerous class of pain medicine.
In the United States, prescription drug abuse is a national epidemic. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, drug overdoses cause more deaths than motor vehicle crashes among people ages 25 to 64, and half of those deaths are related to prescription drugs.
Opioids are one of the most commonly prescribed medications in the emergency department.
, study author
