Development and Validation of the Decisions to use Opioids Measure.
Brittany E Punches, Jennifer L Brown, Michael S Lyons and 12 others
PMID 39521629WHAT IT FOUND
A new questionnaire captures why emergency patients choose opioids after an emergency visit.
It was reviewed by experts and five patients, but not yet tested to predict risky use or work reliably in practice.
Key findings
01The measure started with 52 candidate items and was reduced to 49 final items after patient and expert review.
02The final 49-item measure scored 0.84 on the authors' relevance check, which they set at 0.8 as acceptable.
03The authors did not test whether the items hang together, whether the measure is valid, or whether it predicts at-risk opioid use.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The face-validity sample was small and not diverse: five patients, mean age 34.6 years, four of five White, convenience sample from one emergency department. The measure was not tested for whether it is consistent, valid, or able to predict at-risk opioid use. The work was limited to initial development and validation steps, not a clinical trial or patient outcome study. The measure is intended for acute pain after an emergency department visit, so it may not fit other pain settings or populations. Expert relevance ratings do not show that the measure works in practice or changes patient care.
Declared interests
The paper is listed as receiving NIH extramural research support. No author conflict-of-interest statement appears in the supplied text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not treat the measure as a validated tool that can predict risky opioid use. It has only had initial patient and expert review, and the authors did not test whether it is consistent, valid, or able to predict risky use.