For years now, Public health has played an important role in the healthcare world. Public health refers to “the science and art of preventing disease, extending life and promoting health through organized efforts and educated choices of society, organization’s, public and private communities and individuals (APHA, 2015). In 2015, public health has dominated the nation in bringing together the top and most important public issues. Prescription drug abuse, and misuse is developing into a huge epidemic in the United States and all around the world. According to Esworthy, J (2015). “An estimated 2.4 million Americans have used prescription drugs non-medically, according to results from the 2010 National Survey on Drug Use and Health.” The issue …show more content…
Additionally, opioid drugs, which are controlled pain reliever drugs, are prescribed to patients that are in need of special medical attention for intense pain. Opioid analgesics are centrally involved in prescription drug abuse and overdose; the situation is further complex because of the often-unmet need for sufficient pain treatment. The following paragraphs will discuss management strategies that will address and enhance public health in prescription drug abuse and misuse of opioid drugs, and recommendations for improvement.
The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is discussing strategies with partners at the federal, state and local levels to design polices and programs to decrease prescription drug abuse and improve the world’s health. They came up with eight strategies that will target ways to improve drug abuse in public health, which are: 1) surveillance, 2) drug abuse prevention, 3) patient and public education, 4) provider education, 5) clinical practice tools, 6) regulatory and oversight activities, 7) drug abuse treatment, and 8) overdose prevention initiatives . Surveillance is a strategy that will target the most impacted populations of drug abuse, after finding these groups they well get special education on drug abuse and offer programs
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Second, drug abuse prevention, patient and public education, and provider education and clinical practice tools are all included in this strategy because preventing dangerous or inappropriate use of prescription drugs is the most effective way to avert negative consequences such as overdose deaths (Department of Health & Human Services, 2013). Before someone is prescribed opioid medication, the prescriber or medical staff should give patients brochures on these medications informing them the risks that can be obtained by taking these drugs. Addiction of these types of medications is very common, and can lead to long-term problems if not will informed. These medications are also not to be taken with any type of alcohol beverage because it enhances the effect of the medication, or driving under the influence of these medications can also be an enormous drawback. Furthermore, regulatory and oversight activities is an abundant strategy to support opioid drug safety and assure that clinical practices occur within suitable standards of care. According to Department
Opioid use in the US has increased over the years, and this has led to an increase in substance abuse. Substance abuse is not only associated with use of illicit drugs but also prescription drugs. In 2015, of the 20.5 million reported cases of substance abuse, 2 million had an abuse disorder related to prescription pain relievers and 591,000 associated with heroin.1 The increase in substance abuse disorder has led to an increase in opioid related death. In 2015 drug overdose was the leading cause of accidental death in the US with 52, 404 lethal drug overdoses.2
Opioid drugs are some of the most widespread pain medications that we have in this country; indeed, the fact is that opioid analgesic prescriptions have increased by over 300% from 1999 to 2010 (Mitch 989). Consequently, the number of deaths from overdose increased from 4000 to 16,600 a year in the same time frame (Mitch 989). This fact becomes even more frightening when you think about today; the annual number of fatal drug overdoses in the Unites States now surpasses that of motor vehicle deaths (Alexander 1865). Even worse, overdose deaths caused by opioids specifically exceed those attributed to both cocaine and heroin combined (Alexander 1865).
There is no question that the alarming rate of deaths related to opioid overdose needs to be addressed in this county, but the way to solve the problem seems to remain a trial and error approach at this point. A patient is injured, undergoes surgery, experiences normal wear and tear on a hip, knee or back and has to live with that pain for the rest of their life or take a narcotic pain medication in order to improve their quality of life and at least be able to move. The above patients are what narcotic pain medications were created for, a population of people that use narcotic pain medications for fun is what is creating a problem. Narcotics are addictive to both populations, however taking the narcotic for euphoric reasons is not the intention of the prescription that the physician is writing. The healthcare system needs to find a way to continue to provide patients that experience chronic pain with the narcotics that work for them while attempting to ensure the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) doesn’t have to worry about a flood of pain pills hitting the streets by granting access to the population with a substance abuse problem.
The rate of death due to prescription drug abuse in the U.S. has escalated 313 percent over the past decade. According to the Congressional Quarterly Transcription’s article "Rep. Joe Pitt Holds a Hearing on Prescription Drug Abuse," opioid prescription drugs were involved in 16,650 overdose-caused deaths in 2010, accounting for more deaths than from overdoses of heroin and cocaine. Prescribed drugs or painkillers sometimes "condemn a patient to lifelong addiction," according to Dr. Tom Frieden, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This problem not only affects the lives of those who overdose but it affects the communities as well due to the convenience of being able to find these items in drug stores and such.
The United States currently faces an unprecedented epidemic of opioid addiction. This includes painkillers, heroin, and other drugs made from the same base chemical. In the couple of years, approximately one out of twenty Americans reported misuse or abuse of prescriptions painkillers. Heroin abuse and overdoses are on the rise and are the leading cause of injury deaths, surpassing car accidents and gun shots. The current problem differs from the opioid addiction outbreaks of the past in that it is also predominant in the middle and affluent classes. Ultimately, anyone can be fighting a battle with addiction and it is important for family members and loved ones to know the signs. The cause for this epidemic is that the current spike of opioid abuse can be traced to two decades of increased prescription rates for painkillers by well-meaning physicians.
Considerable cautions have been obtained throughout the United States to decrease the misuse of prescription opioids and helps to minimize opioid overdoses and related complications. Even though the pain medications have a significant part in the treatment of acute and chronic pain situations, it sometimes happen that the high dose prescription or the prescribed medications, without having enough monitoring, can create bad outcomes. It is always a dilemma for the providers to find who is really in need of pain medications and to identify those who are questionably misusing opioids.
It is important for our culture in western society to educate doctors on how to modify and limit their prescribing behavior so that less people become dependent on opioid medication. Doctors must start limiting and monitoring the number of opioid prescriptions they administer to patients. Limiting the number of prescriptions will lower the chances for potential abuse within patients, as well as lower the ease of access and circulation of opioid medication on the streets.
Opioids are being over prescribed in the United States resulting in increased deaths by drug overdose. Pain medication strategies are being looked into as substitutes for pain management. Over decades, the amount of medicine being prescribed has more than tripled. State policies regarding the medication were implemented and who'd a small decrease in the likelihood of opioid prescriptions. Nationally, death rates are on the rise. Studies monitoring prescription drugs do not account for illegal opioids and manufactured fentanyl. While not mentioned in this article, there is a possible correlation between young people prescribed opioids and illegal drug use seeing that overdoses are common in patients already abusing their prescription medication, yet overdose death being most common after
Specific purpose: To inform my audience about the growing problem of prescription drug abuse, some common drugs that cause abuse, and their effects and some common treatments.
As better and more comprehensive education is provided both to the general public and practicing clinicians the hope is to reduce the negativity surrounding the users of opioids, and to eliminate demeaning language coupled to them as well. This could improve patient morale and help the needless continuation of physical suffering within patients, as they would be more comfortable approaching and using opioids for therapeutic purposes1. That being said there are those within our communities who do abuse these substances and pharmacists must recognize the signs of abusers, it is important for them to reach out, without comment, to help those suffering from opioid abuse once they have been
Doctors and clinical prescribers have discovered their role in curtailing the increased opioid prescriptions in America. It is without a doubt that they play a role in facilitating the opioid misuse endemic in the past by being enablers of the situations. When patients ask for pain medications, they do not take time to analyze the pain complaints or suggest alternative medications other than opioids. Even in instances when one doctor declines to offer a patient an opioid prescription for their pain needs, the patient is likely to find another who will give the prescription. However, there has been wide recognition of the opioid misuse endemic such that clinical prescribers are practicing more vigilant prescribing and are advocating opioid-free
Opioid addiction is a condition that is preventable as well as one which individuals display several noticeable risk factors before the actual addiction prognosis to the point of causing death. There is a strong correlation between the early misuse of prescription opioids, which are prescribed for non-cancer pain management, and the development of a dependence on such opioids. Early detection of risk factors such as the misuse of opioids that are prescribed will help indicate that a patient is developing an addiction.1 Physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and other healthcare providers must closely monitor patients and the rate at which opioids are consumed as well as refilled.
The present regulations are not as effective in reducing opioid use. New programs and uniformity among them will lead to a reduction in opioids. In the years 1999 to 2015, 180,000 people died from opioid related overdoses (CDC, 2017). Drug overdoses still present an ongoing threat in the United States. The medication that is healing the patient does not have proper monitoring and restrictions, thus allowing for an overdose problem to occur. A temporary fix tries to lower the number of overdoses, but with proper guidelines and stricter regulation on dosage, usage, and physician prescribing, the chances of overdosing and death due to overdose will be reduced over time. The programs in place now are not correctly
Abuse of opioid pain relievers (OPRs) continues to increase in the United States. Opioid-related overdose deaths since 1999 have quadrupled, correlated with quadrupled dispensing of prescription opioids (Rudd et al., 2016, CDC, 217). Among these deaths, prescription opioids have been involved approximately half (CDC, 2017). According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the central issue is elevated prescribing rates of physicians and the solution to this problem is safer prescribing practices.
The negative outcomes of medication misuse influence people who ill-use medicates as well as their families and companions, different organizations, and government assets (Akindipe, Abiodun, Adebajo, Lawal, & Rataemane, 2014). Albeit huge numbers of these impacts can 't be evaluated, “Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) as of late in 2002 reported that, the monetary expense of drug abuse within the United States was $180.9 billion” (Akindipe et al., 2014, Pg 250 Para 10). The