Opioid Use as a Predictor of Health Care Use and Pain Outcomes: Analysis of Clinical Trial Data

To examine effects of pre-enrollment opioid use on outcomes of a 12-month collaborative pain care management trial. We hypothesized that participants with opioid use would have worse pain at baseline; use more health care services and analgesics; and have worse pain outcomes during the trial.

Secondary analysis of randomized controlled trial data.

Veterans Affairs (VA) primary care.

Patients age 18-65 years with chronic pain of at least moderate severity who were enrolled in a 12-month pragmatic trial of a telephone-based collaborative care intervention for chronic musculoskeletal pain.

Participants were categorized as opioid users (n = 84) or non-users (n = 166) at baseline and trial randomization was stratified by opioid use. We used logistic regression to examine cross-sectional associations with baseline opioid use and mixed-effect models for repeated measures to examine baseline opioid use as a predictor of Brief Pain Inventory (BPI) scores over 12 months.

At baseline, 33.6% reported use of prescribed opioids. Baseline opioid users had higher baseline BPI scores and higher health-related disability than non-users. Baseline opioid users also had more outpatient visits (15.0 vs. 10.1; p = 0.001) and received more analgesics (p < 0.001) during the trial. In the final multivariable model examining effects of baseline opioid use on BPI over 12 months, opioid users and nonusers had a non-significant difference of 0.25 points (p = 0.098). In conclusion, although baseline opioid users had worse pain at baseline and used more health care during the study, response to the intervention was not significantly modified by pre-existing opioid therapy.