Perioperative Opioid Use Patterns

Our primary outcome was new persistent opioid use, defined as an opioid fill between 90–180 days among those patients who filled opioid prescriptions perioperatively (Figure 1), and was defined a priori prior to data extraction.⁸ This definition of new persistent opioid use represents a time in which normal surgical recovery would be expected for the surgeries selected and is more conservative than the three-month definition of chronic post-surgical pain by the International Association for the Study of Pain.^ϕ The total amount of opioid prescribed during the surgical window of 30 days prior to surgery to 14 days post-discharge, including the dose of the medication and amount dispensed, were converted to oral morphine equivalents (OMEs).^ϒ