Types of Opioid Harms in Canadian Hospitals: Comparing Canada and Australia

Harms related to opioid use (whether prescribed or obtained illicitly) represent a growing cause of concern in developed countries, including Australia and Canada.This report examines the characteristics of opioid-related care visits to emergency departments (EDs) or hospital admissions and groups them into five distinct harm profiles. These profiles and their respective distributions illustrate how opioid-related harms differ across care settings in Canada. Opioid dependence and accidental poisoning were the more prominent types of harm seen in EDs, with a rate of 39.2 and 38.0 visits per 100,000 population, respectively. Within the in-patient population, rates of hospital stays were comparatively higher (26.8 per 100,000) for adverse drug reactions compared to other opioid-related harms. In addition to differing patterns in care settings, these harm groups differed on length of hospital stay, types of care received, other drugs involved and demographic variables such as age, gender and income.