94 Short-term use of therapeutic opioids for children and future opioid use disorders: A systematic review and qualitative study of decision-maker information needs
Authors: Ahrari Malema , Ali Samina , Dyson Michele , Hartling Lisa 
Published: October 2021

Primary Subject area

Emergency Medicine - Paediatric

Background

Healthcare visits, hospitalizations, and deaths due to opioid-related harms continue to rise for children, despite an overall decline in opioid prescriptions. Decision-makers (including patients and families, clinicians, and policy-makers) require high quality syntheses to inform decisions regarding opioid use. Previous research has found that how systematic review (SR) results are presented may influence uptake by decision-makers. Evidence summaries are appealing to decision-makers as they provide key messages in a succinct manner.

Objectives

1) To conduct an SR examining the association between short-term therapeutic exposure to opioids in children and development of opioid use disorder, and 2) To gain perspectives from policy decision-makers on the usability and presentation of results through the form of an evidence summary.

Design/Methods

We conducted an SR following methods recommended by Cochrane. A medical librarian conducted a comprehensive search and two authors were involved in study selection, data extraction and quality assessment. Studies were eligible if they reported primary research in English or French, and study participants had therapeutic exposure to opioids before age 18 years. Results were described narratively. Decision makers were recruited through purposive and snowball sampling methods, and they participated in interviews to discuss an evidence summary based on the SR. Interviews were transcribed and data were analyzed using content analysis. Ethics approval was obtained for the qualitative study.

Results

Nineteen American studies involving 47,191,990 participants were included. One study demonstrated that short-term therapeutic exposure may be associated with opioid abuse. Four others showed an association without specifying duration of exposure. Fourteen studies provided information on prevalence or incidence of opioid misuse following therapeutic exposure, median 27.8% [interquartile range 21.4% – 30.7%]; notably, 12 of them did not specify duration of therapeutic exposure. Identified risk factors were contradictory and remain unclear.

Decision makers had mixed preferences for the presentation of evidence, depending on their degree of involvement in research versus practice. A majority preferred having methods and key characteristics of studies included in the first page of the evidence summary. They noted that the summary should not be text-heavy and details should be appended.

Conclusion

A number of studies suggest there is an association between lifetime therapeutic opioid use (unknown duration) and future nonmedical opioid use; however, there is limited evidence to determine whether short-term exposure is specifically associated with these outcomes. Policy and decision-makers prefer a succinct evidence summary for this SR, with study-specific details provided as an appendix. PROSPERO Registration: 122681.