Primary care provider attitudes regarding physical therapists addressing opioid use and opioid misuse: a qualitative study.

All participants were licensed in Utah. Opioid prescribing habits and access to physical therapy differ between regions, so these views may not represent primary care providers elsewhere. Every participant had referred patients to physical therapy within the past 6 months. Providers who do not refer, or who are sceptical about physical therapists taking on opioid-related work, were not interviewed, so the views here are likely more favourable than average. Participants may have had a particular interest in opioids, which the authors note could bias the results. Transcripts were not returned to participants to check, so the team's reading of what people meant was not verified with them. The rapid content analysis used here is a streamlined method; a slower, more resource-intensive approach might have produced different themes. This study reports attitudes only. No patients were followed and no opioid-related outcomes were measured, so it says nothing about whether physical therapist screening or education actually reduces misuse or harm.

The authors state that the funders played no role in the design, conduct or reporting of the study; the source of that funding is not named in the text supplied. Participants were paid $100. The investigators include physical therapists and the senior author is an addiction medicine physician, and the authors note that having physical therapists on a team interviewing providers who refer to physical therapy may have shaped how the data were interpreted.

Do not read this as evidence that physical therapist screening or education reduces opioid misuse. No patients were followed and no outcomes were measured. These are the opinions of 22 primary care providers in Utah about what they would welcome, and the participants all already referred patients to physical therapy.