Effect of Prescriber Notifications of Patient’s Fatal Overdose on Opioid Prescribing at 4 to 12 Months

Introduction

Doctor et al sought to establish whether clinicians notified by their county’s medical examiner of their patient’s overdose from a schedule II to IV drug were more likely than clinicians who were not notified to reduce opioid prescribing. The trial involved 167 decedents who received prescriptions from 826 clinicians in San Diego County, California, from July 2015 through June 2016. The results showed a 9.7% decrease in prescriptions filled for morphine milligram equivalents (MME) up to 3 months after letter receipt. In addition, the trial found a decrease in new patients and patients taking a high dose of opioids in the panels of those clinicians receiving the letter. This analysis using data from a previous randomized clinical trial evaluates whether decreases in MME, new patients taking opioids, and patients taking a high dose persisted up to 1 year after clinicians received a letter about a patient’s fatal overdose.

The full study can be viewed at JAMA Network Open.

Doctor, Stewart, E., Lev, R., Lucas, J., Knight, T., Nguyen, A., & Menchine, M. (2023). Effect of Prescriber Notifications of Patient’s Fatal Overdose on Opioid Prescribing at 4 to 12 Months: A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Network Open, 6(1), e2249877–e2249877.