Long-term, high-dose opioid prescribing for chronic non-cancer pain in primary care.

This study offers confirmation that a significant group of patients are prescribed long-term opioid medication for chronic pain at doses which are unlikely to be effective in reducing pain but are likely to have harmful consequences. The findings offer a simple, reliable and practical method of data extraction to identify these patients individually from routinely collected prescribing data, which will help in monitoring and treating individuals and establishing the problem prevalence.