Longitudinal Pain Medication Use Among US Older Adults After a Hip Fracture.
Lexie R Grove, Andrew R Zullo, Daniel A Harris and 6 others
PMID 41101356WHAT IT FOUND
Among 88,433 Medicare beneficiaries discharged to a skilled nursing facility after hip fracture, 83.7% received pain medication during 100-day follow-up.
Among gabapentinoid recipients in the first 15 days, 91.0% were co-prescribed an opioid.
Key findings
0188,433 older adults were analyzed, and 83.7% received pain medication at any point during the 100-day follow-up.
02The most common regimen across follow-up was acetaminophen plus hydrocodone (16.7%), followed by acetaminophen plus oxycodone (11.2%), acetaminophen only (5.9%), and acetaminophen plus tramadol (5.8%).
03Among individuals dispensed a gabapentinoid in days 0 to 15 after skilled nursing facility admission, 91.0% were co-prescribed an opioid in the same period.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
The final linked Omnicare cohort was 88,433 of 423,347 eligible beneficiaries (20.8%), and linked individuals had a higher prevalence of some chronic conditions, including anemia, hypertension, and dementia. Results may not apply to older adults hospitalized for hip fracture who were not continuously enrolled in fee-for-service Medicare and Part D or who were not discharged to a skilled nursing facility. The study did not estimate doses, could not measure actual administration during an interval, may not have reliably captured injection or infusion pain medicines, and could not confirm patients used all dispensed medications. It described dispensing patterns and did not compare whether one regimen controlled pain better than another.
Declared interests
The article metadata lists NIH and non-U.S. government research support. The supplied text does not name a funder for this study. Author disclosures include: K.N.H. received investigator-initiated grant funding paid to Brown University from Sanofi, Genentech, and GlaxoSmithKline for nursing home vaccine and outbreak research; A.R.Z. received grant funding paid to Brown University by Sanofi for infection and vaccination research; D.A.H. received investigator-initiated funding paid to the University of Delaware from GSK for shingles vaccine work and consultant income from Sanofi and Insight Therapeutics for work unrelated to this study. All other authors declared no conflicts.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read 91.0% co-prescribing as proof that gabapentinoids plus opioids are effective or safe. The study counted dispensings, not doses, administration, or use of all dispensed medications.