Research published in the December issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association, Internal Medicine, reveals that when one person in a family gets a prescription for opioids, others in the household are likely to get one as well.
The study out of Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore used insurance claims to examine “data on about 12.6 million people living in a household where someone was prescribed opioids and 6.4 million individuals in homes where someone was prescribed a different option for pain – nonprescription steroidal anti-inflammatory (NSAID) drugs.”
While the overall increased risk was relatively small, given the high number of opioid prescriptions in the United States and the quickly-escalating cases of addiction, it is important to consider the potential implications of family members sharing prescriptions.