Preoperative Opioid Education has No Effect on Opioid Use in Patients Undergoing Arthroscopic Rotator Cuff Repair: A...

The purpose of this study was to determine whether a preoperative video-based opioid education reduced narcotics consumption after arthroscopic rotator cuff repair in opioid-naive patients.

This was a single-center randomized controlled trial. Preoperatively, the control group received our institution's standard of care for pain management education, whereas the experimental group watched an educational video on the use of opioids. Patients were discharged with 30 × 5 mg/325 mg oxycodone-acetaminophen prescribed: 1 to 2 tablets every 4 to 6 hours. They were contacted daily and asked to report opioid use and visual analog scale pain. A chart review at 3 months post-op was used to analyze for opioid refills.

A total of 130 patients completed the study (65 control and 65 experimental). No statistically significant differences were noted in patient demographics between groups (P > 0.05). Patients in the education group did not use a statistically significant different number of narcotics than the control group throughout the first postoperative week (14.0 pills experimental versus 13.7 pills control, P = 0.60). No statistically significant differences were noted between groups at follow-regarding the rate of prescription refills (P > 0.05).

This study suggests that preoperative video-based opioid education may have no effect on reducing the number of narcotic pills consumed after arthroscopic rotator cuff repair.

Data exist to suggest that preoperative video-based opioid education has an effect on postoperative consumption; however, the effect of this education in the setting of already-limited opioid-prescribing is not known.

NCT04018768.