Background: Opioid overdose was declared a public health emergency in the United States, but much of the focus has been on adults. Child and adolescent exposure and access to unused prescription-opioid medications is a big concern. More research is needed on the trend of pediatric (age 0-17) prescription-opioid overdose emergency department (ED) visits in the United States, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic year.
Methods: This retrospective epidemiological study used the 2008-2020 Nationwide Emergency Department Sample to provide a national estimate of ED visits related to prescription-opioid overdose. Inclusion criteria were 0-17-year-old patients treated at the ED due to prescription-opioid overdose. Eligible visits were identified if their medical records included any administrative billing codes for prescription-opioid overdose. National estimates were broken down by age groups, sex, geographic region, primary payer, median household income by zip code, ED disposition, and hospital location/teaching status. Incidence rate per 100,000 U.S. children was calculated for age groups, sex, and geographic region.
Results: Overall, the prescription-opioid overdose ED visits for patients from 0-17 years old in the United States decreased by 22% from 2008 to 2019, then increased by 12% in 2020. Most patients were discharged to home following their ED visit; however, there was a 42% increase in patients admitted from 2019 to 2020. The prescription-opioid overdose rate per 100,000 U.S. children was highest in the 0 to 1 and 12 to 17 age groups, with the 12 to 17 group increasing by 27% in 2020. ED visits in the West and Midwest saw prescription-opioid visits increase by 58% and 20%, respectively, from 2019-2020.
Conclusions: Prescription-opioid overdose ED visits among U.S. children and adolescents decreased over the past decade until 2019. However, there was a substantial increase in ED visits from 2019 to 2020, suggesting the potential impact due to the then-emerging COVID-19 pandemic. Findings suggest focusing on young children and adolescents to reduce further prescription-opioid overdoses in the United States.
Copyright: © 2024 Lu et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.