NCT03748862

The Effect of Primary Care Opioid Taper Plans on Sustained Opioid Taper

The Effect of Primary Care Opioid Taper Plans and Their Components on Sustained Opioid Taper and Opioid Discontinuation

• Status: Completed
• Phase: —
• Study type: Observational
• Enrollment: 2,500 (actual)
• Sponsor: Kaiser Permanente · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

The objective of this study is to examine the effects of opioid taper plans as documented in the electronic medical record for Kaiser Permanente Washington (KPWA) patients. The study will compare different types of opioid tapering plans and will report on their effectiveness in producing sustained taper or discontinuation of long-term opioid therapy for chronic non-cancer pain while maintaining adequate pain control. The study population is KPWA patients receiving long-term opioid therapy from 2010 to 2017.

Detailed description

Opioid taper is now encouraged by many health care organizations, but it is unclear if explicit plans for opioid taper by primary care providers are effective at promoting tapering or discontinuation, and if they are effective, which components account for their effectiveness. Patients receiving long-term opioid therapy (LtOT), who are candidates for tapering, often perceive a low risk of overdose and a high risk of increased pain with opioid tapering. They fear opioid withdrawal and lack of effectiveness of non-opioid therapies. For patients with opioid tapering experience, support from family and a trusted health care provider eased opioid tapering. Many patients report improved quality of life following taper. Little data exists on the optimal opioid taper strategy, including: use of long or short-acting opioids, frequency of clinic visits, use of adjunctive medications and the role of psychological support. Recent initiatives to reduce high-dose opioid use at Kaiser Permanente Washington offer an opportunity to study the effect of opioid taper plans and their components in an integrated care system with an electronic health record including all health encounters and pharmacy dispensing. This study will report the proportion of LtOT patients who successfully taper compared to a similar group of LtOT patients who don't achieve tapering or discontinuation of tapering. We will also evaluate whether taper plans, defined by the patient's primary care provider, increase the likelihood of successfully tapering comparing the two groups cited above.

Conditions

• Opiate Replacement Therapy

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	Taper Plan	Occurrence of a taper plan defined by a primary care provider during the follow-up period. Evidence of a taper plan will be obtained by searching prescriptions (SIGs) and medical encounter notes using natural language processing (NLP).

Timeline

• Start date: 2018-01-01
• Primary completion: 2018-10-30
• Completion: 2019-03-31
• First posted: 2018-11-21
• Last updated: 2019-08-21

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States