Opioid prescribing to US children and young adults in 2019

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Recent national data are lacking on the prevalence, safety, and prescribers of opioid prescriptions dispensed to children and young adults aged 0 to 21 years. METHODS: We identified opioid prescriptions dispensed to children and young adults in 2019 in the IQVIA Longitudinal Prescription Database, which captures 92% of US pharmacies. We calculated the proportion of all US children and young adults with $1 dispensed opioid prescription in 2019. We calculated performance on 6 metrics of high-risk prescribing and the proportion of prescriptions written by each specialty. Of all prescriptions and those classified as high risk by $1 metric, we calculated the proportion written by high-volume prescribers with prescription counts at the $95th percentile. RESULTS: Analyses included 4 027 701 prescriptions. In 2019, 3.5% of US children and young adults had $1 dispensed opioid prescription. Of prescriptions for opioid-naive patients, 41.8% and 3.8% exceeded a 3-day and 7-day supply, respectively. Of prescriptions for young children, 8.4% and 7.7% were for codeine and tramadol. Of prescriptions for adolescents and young adults, 11.5% had daily dosages of $50 morphine milligram equivalents; 4.6% had benzodiazepine overlap. Overall, 45.6% of prescriptions were high risk by $1 metric. Dentists and surgeons wrote 61.4% of prescriptions. High-volume prescribers wrote 53.3% of prescriptions and 53.1% of high-risk prescriptions. CONCLUSIONS: Almost half of pediatric opioid prescriptions are high risk. To reduce high-risk prescribing, initiatives targeting high-volume prescribers may be warranted. However, broad-based initiatives are also needed to address the large share of high-risk prescribing attributable to other prescribers.