A review of opioid prescription in a teaching hospital in Colombia

Jairo Moyano,¹ Albert Figueras^2
1Anesthesia Department, Pain Service, Hospital Universitario Fundación Santafé de Bogotá, Avenida 9 No 117-20, Bogotá, Republic of Colombia; ²Fundació Institut Català de Farmacología, Departamento de Farmacología Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain

Introduction: Review of opioid prescriptions in a hospital provides valuable information to health care professionals which may contribute to proper pain management; opioid utilization studies may help uncover factors that can be improved for better prescribing. To evaluate the use of opioid analgesics in a university hospital, a review of opioids prescribed in hospitalized patients was developed.
Methods: Information was obtained from the pharmacy database and medical records. The study period was 1 month.
Results: Medical records of 1156 patients admitted in July 2009 were analyzed. The most widely prescribed opioid was tramadol; the preferred administration route was intravenous; the main indication was severe pain; and major prescribers were from surgical departments.
Discussion: Underutilization of potent opioids for acute and chronic pain seems to occur.
Conclusion: Most prescribers prefer weak opioids, given intravenously to treat acute and chronic pain, while some patients may benefit from the prescription of more potent opioids.

Keywords: drug utilization, pain, tramadol, morphine, hydromorphone, pethidine

Corrigendum for this paper has been published