Study of the Pattern of Drug Abuse of Opioids and Non-Opioids Analgesics in Chronic Pain Patients

Abstract

Chronic pain has been recognized as pain that persists past normal healing time. Usually pain is regarded as chronic when it lasts or recurs for more than 3 to 6 months. Chronic pain is a frequent condition, affecting an estimated 20% of people worldwide, and accounting for 15% to 20% of physician visits. Addiction is a chronic, complex disorder characterized by inability to consistently abstain, impairment in behavioral control, craving, diminished recognition of significant problems with one’s behaviors and interpersonal relationships, and a dysfunctional emotional response, and includes repeated exposure to drugs with abuse liability combined with predisposing environmental and genetic risk factors. Chronic pain and drug dependence are intermingled and overlapping chronic conditions, affecting each other in many ways, including medical, psychiatric and sociodemographic factors. Based on that, this study was a cross-sectional comparative study, conducted at the outpatient pain clinic at Ain shams university hospital, Cairo, Egypt, aiming to study the problem of prescription drug dependence in a sample of chronic pain patients according to the DSM V criteria for substance abuse and dependence, and to correlate drug dependence with other clinical data. Our study also aimed to compare the pattern of abuse in different populations of patients, weather cancer or non-cancer patients, or patients taking opioids or non-opioid analgesics