Medical counselling boosts adherence to proper opioid disposal

Among families of postoperative paediatric patients, proper counselling by a medical professional improves adherence to proper opioid disposal guidelines, a recent study has found.

Researchers conducted a cross-sectional analysis of 180 postsurgical paediatric patients (mean age 8±6 years, 64 percent boys) whose families were surveyed regarding opioid requirements, storage, usage, and disposal patterns.

More than half (55 percent) said that they did not learn proper disposal protocols for opioids from healthcare professionals, and 4 percent said that they had to look it up on the internet. Pharmacists (15 percent), doctors (7 percent), and nurses (2 percent) were the medical professionals mainly involved in opioid education.

Nevertheless, majority of the participants knew how to properly dispose of opioid medications, with 47 percent saying “take them back to the pharmacy, police department, or hospital” and 19 percent “flush them down the toilet.”

However, such responses were in contrast to the participants’ actions after surgery. Sixty-six percent of families reported that they still had leftover medication by the final follow-up, of whom nearly half kept the excess opioids for possible later use. Only 22 percent actually disposed leftover medications in accordance with the guidelines.

Multivariable logistic regression analysis revealed that being counselled by a medical professional was the only significant predictor of proper opioid disposal among families (odds ratio, 3.14, 95 percent confidence interval, 1.26–7.81; p=0.01).