By Nikki Kean
Nearly 20% of patients who sought opioid-based pain medication within the past five years experienced difficulty obtaining a prescription, according to a new survey of consumers conducted by DrFirst in March. Half of patients cited their doctor’s hesitation in prescribing opioids as the reason.
The results of the survey seem to confirm what the authors of the CDC opioid guideline noted in an editorial in The New England Journal of Medicine (2019 Apr 24. [Epub ahead of print]).