Background and objective: There is evidence that opioid initiation post-surgery is contributing to the problem of chronic misuse and/or abuse of over the counter medications in the community, and that orthopedic patients may be particularly at risk. The aim of the systematic review with meta-analysis was to identify research that examined opioid use at 3, 6, and 12 months post-operatively by previously opioid naïve orthopedic surgery patients. Design, databases, and data treatment: A searched review with meta-analysis was undertaken. Eight databases were search. Meta-analyses conducted at all three time points (3 months, 6 months, and 12 months).
Results: The search yielded 779 records, and after screening, 13 papers were included in meta-analysis. Results provide strong evidence that post-operative opioid use amongst the opioid naïve is a real effect (7 percent at 3 months, 4 percent at 6 months, and 2 percent at 12 months). A Z-test for overall effect revealed strong evidence that this proportion was nonzero for opioid use at 3, 6, and 12 months (p < 0.001 for all time points). A small but significant proportion of opioid naïve patients who are prescribed opioids remain on these medications up to 12 months post-operatively.
Conclusions: The nature of the studies included in the meta-analysis were varied, hence subanalyses regarding surgery type, characteristics of the patient group or other potential factors that might influence the progression to longer term opioid use after these surgeries could not be explored. Given this, further research in this area should explore such specific orthopedic subgroups.