Specialty-specific reduction in opioid prescribing after common pediatric surgical operations
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Read the article on jpedsurg.org ↗Article · Mar 2019 · 1 min read
In brief
In brief
Study evaluating an educational intervention's impact on opioid prescribing after pediatric tonsillectomy and hernia repair. Intervention significantly reduced opioid prescriptions for hernia repair but not tonsillectomy, suggesting specialty-specific educator-prescriber relationships influence prescribing behavior change.
Written by the GCMD Library team from the article.
Background
Opioid misuse has reached epidemic proportions, and postoperative opioids have been linked to overdose, diversion, and dependency. We recently found our opioid prescribing practices following common pediatric operations to be inconsistent and excessive. In this study, we evaluate the efficacy of an educational intervention on opioid prescriptions following tonsillectomy and hernia repair.
Methods
Retrospective chart review of prescriptions following outpatient tonsillectomies and hernia repairs at a single institution before and after an educational intervention was performed. The intervention consisted of a single campus-wide grand rounds presentation detailing the surgeon's role in the opioid epidemic.
Results
Postoperative opioid prescriptions were significantly reduced for hernia repair following the educational intervention: 4.2 ± 2.9 vs 2.7 ± 2.6 days' supply (p = 0.004). Such a reduction was not observed for post-tonsillectomy opioid prescriptions: 6.3 ± 4.4 vs 5.4 ± 3.0 days' supply (p = 0.226). A greater decrease in interprovider variation was observed for hernia providers after the educational intervention than for tonsillectomy providers, though significant variation continued to be present for both procedures after the intervention.
Conclusions
The efficacy of an educational intervention at reducing postoperative pediatric opioid prescribing may be tied to the specialty-specific role model relationship of the educator to the prescriber.
Type of study: retrospective comparative chart review.
Level of evidence: IV.