Risk factors for opioid analgesic drug use at discharge after sports traumatology procedure

Summary Background The use of opioid analgesic drugs (OADs) to treat postoperative pain after sports traumatology procedures at the time of discharge may be associated with prolonged OAD use after discharge. Material and methods Between January and February 2017, 195 patients underwent inpatient surgery in a sports traumatology department. In total, 194 patients were available for retrospective analysis. The use of OAD and patient- and therapy-related factors were recorded. Odds ratios (OR; 95% CI) were calculated to detect potential risk factors of OAD use at the time of patient discharge. Results Overall, 50 patients (25.8%) received OADs as continuous medication, 85 patients (43.8%) received OADs as oral demand medication, and 103 patients (53.1%) received OADs as intravenous on-demand medication. Within the entire study population, 40 patients (20.6%) received OADs at the time of discharge. A high patient age (OR 1.04; 1.01–1.06), female gender (OR 2.19; 1.08–4.46), a long hospital stay (OR 1.44; 1.19–1.74), the use of regional and/or spinal anaesthesia (OR 3.18; 1.32–7.64) and the preoperative use of OADs (OR 27.0; 3.15–231.65) were found to increase patient risk of being discharged with OADs. Conclusions In sports traumatology, high patient age, female gender, long hospital stays and the preoperative use of OADs are risk factors for OAD use at the time of discharge. Physicians should be aware of these risk factors of administering prolonged OAD treatment, and they should try to terminate the use of OAD therapy or switch to non-opiate analgesics before discharging patients.