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Pain and Chemical Dependency News
The Prescription Drug Use Questionnaire (PDUQ) is one of several tools used
by clinicians to identify opioid abuse or dependence in patients with chronic
pain. This paper introduces a patient version of the PDUQ (PDUQp), a 31-item
self-administered questionnaire, and talks about its validity and reliability
in a sample of patients on opioids for chronic noncancer pain. This study also
examines instances where patients violated opioid medication agreements and
pain treatment discontinued and the relationship of problematic opioid misuse
behaviors to PDUQ and PDUQp scores. A sample of 135 patients with chronic noncancer
pain who were taking opioids was recruited from a multidisciplinary Veterans
Affairs chronic pain clinic and followed for one year. Using the PDUQ as a criterion
measure, the PDUQp is reported as valid and reliable.
Of those patients whose opioid treatment was discontinued due to medication
agreement violation-related discontinuation (n=38 or 28% of sample), 40% of
these (n=11) were due to specific problematic opioid misuse behaviors. A suggested
cutoff PDUQp score for predicting medication agreement violation-related discontinuation
is provided. This study suggests that the PDUQp may be a useful tool for assessing
and predicting problematic opioid medication use in chronic pain patients. Compton
PA, Wu SM, Schieffer B, Pham Q, Naliboff BD. Adapted from J Pain Symptom Manage.
2008 May 27.
PMID: 18508231
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed
Credit: PubMed, developed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information
(NCBI) at the
National Library of Medicine (NLM).
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