Research Alert
News — When patients undergoing orthopaedic procedures such as hip or knee replacements were provided with opioid disposal kits, it coincided with a 10-plus percent increase in the safe disposal of leftover painkillers, according to a new study from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Extra opioid pain medications after surgeries are a concern because they increase the likelihood of their misuse, so researchers are intent to discover ways to cut down on the medicines that could be left after recovery from common surgeries. In addition to the increase in how many patients got rid of their extra medications, the researchers found that those with disposal kits reported safely disposing a greater fraction of their leftovers than patients who had not been provided with kits.
“Any time we can cut down the number of opioids that could potentially circulate or be misused, it’s a positive step,” said co-corresponding author an assistant professor of Emergency Medicine and deputy director of the Center for Insights to Outcomes. “If you can make the right decision the easy one, you’re much more likely to get a positive outcome, and I think that’s what we saw here.”
The paper was published in .
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