Strategies to Standardize Opioid Research and Improve Clinical Pain Management

Opioid abuse results in poor pain control, poor outcomes, and addiction. Clinical recommendations to manage pain include identifying the problem, considering multimodal anesthesia, avoiding overprescribing, acknowledging that minimizing opioid use is not equivalent to undertreating pain, minimizing preoperative opioid use, managing patient expectations, and continuing to investigate outcomes of pain management while limiting opioid prescriptions or forgoing opioids altogether. Authors are directed to new Recommendations for Pain Management Research to highlight critical research parameters and standardize outcome reporting.