Opioid medications, which are highly addictive, are causing an epidemic in this country. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has determined that about 130 Americans die every day from overdosing on opioids.
(MORE: Largest opioid settlement in US history: Suboxone maker to pay $1.4 billion) Dr. Joceline Vu, one of the study's authors and a surgical resident at University of Michigan, thinks that these new guidelines can be a part of the solution.
"For healthy people, surgery may be the first time they are exposed to opioids," she told ABC News. So if people unfamiliar with taking opioids are given more than required, that person could become dependent on them, she added. Or the pills could find their way into the community.
Sharfstein agreed with Vu, adding that this is one part of a large and complex problem.
Before these guidelines, Vu said there wasn't a systematic way for surgeons to determine how many pills to give to patients when they're released from the hospital. Many physicians, Vu added, worried that prescribing too few pills could mean their patients feel more pain and consequently report lower satisfaction scores, which are used to judge a hospital's success.
(MORE: One Nation, Overdosed: Snapshots of Americans struggling under the opioid crisis) Vu went on to say that not only have the guidelines been useful in preventing prescriptions of too many pills but that patients never felt their pain or concerns were ignored.
"It is important that this study be read, and people realize that changes are possible," said Sharfstein, adding that in fighting the opioid epidemic on several fronts, evidence-based recommendations could prove crucial.
Nithin Paul, M.D., M.P.H., is a family medicine and preventive medicine resident physician at Medstar and Johns Hopkins University writing for ABC News' Medical Unit.
Kaynak:Abcnews