Personally prescribed psychoactive drugs in overdose deaths among drug abusers: A retrospective register study

Abstract

Personally prescribed PPDs pose a potential threat to people who abuse drugs. Health-care services should invest greater effort in identifying people who abuse drugs and in monitoring their drug prescriptions.

Non-prescribed use of psychoactive prescription drugs among drug-impaired drivers in Sweden

“…Previous studies have reported corresponding figures of that in the year before death, a personal prescription was missing in 63% (Hall et al, 2008) and 76% (Rönkä et al, 2015) of fatal overdoses with psychoactive prescription drugs. The slightly lower prevalence in our study may be explained by differences in the study population characteristics (fatally intoxicated vs. living subjects) and in the terminology between the studies.…”

“…The slightly lower prevalence in our study may be explained by differences in the study population characteristics (fatally intoxicated vs. living subjects) and in the terminology between the studies. Rönkä et al (2015) included also dispenses of other drugs in the same class (i.e. of opioid analgesics if tramadol was identified).…”

“…Prescription drug abuse and diversion is associated with serious medical, social and other short-and long-term consequences (Hall et al, 2008;Häkkinen et al, 2014;Rudisill et al, 2014;Rönkä et al, 2015;Zamparutti et al, 2011) and is a recognized global public health concern (WHO, 2006;UN, 2014;Griffiths et al, 2014)). Still, established, effective methods that evaluate their occurrence are missing (Secora et al, 2014).…”

“…Little is also known about the factors associated with diversion of psychoactive prescription drugs, although the established risk factors for substance use disorders, including young age (Hall et al, 2008;Rönkä et al, 2015), mental health problems and previous treatment with psychoactive drugs (Buurma et al, 2008, Cepeda et al, 2012, Bodén et al, 2014 are likely to be important. As opposed to other substance use disorders, however, prescription drug abuse has reported as equal in both sexes (Cepeda et al, 2012;Hall et al, 2008;Han et al, 2014;Rönkä et al, 2015) or greater in women (Buurma et al, 2008;Worley and Thomas, 2014).…”

“…As opposed to other substance use disorders, however, prescription drug abuse has reported as equal in both sexes (Cepeda et al, 2012;Hall et al, 2008;Han et al, 2014;Rönkä et al, 2015) or greater in women (Buurma et al, 2008;Worley and Thomas, 2014).…”