Examining patterns in opioid prescribing for non-cancer-related pain in Wales: preliminary data from a retrospective cross-sectional study using large datasets

Objectives: To examine trends in strong opioid prescribing in a primary care population in Wales and identify if factors such as age, deprivation and recorded diagnosis of depression or anxiety may have influenced any changes noted.

Design: Trend, cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses of routine data from the Primary Care General Practice database and accessed via the Secure Anonymised Information Linkage (SAIL) databank. Setting: A total of 345 Primary Care practices in Wales.

Participants: Anonymised records of 1,223,503 people aged 18 or over, receiving at least one opioid pre- scription between 1 January 2005 and 31 December 2015 were analysed. People with a cancer diagnosis (10.1%) were excluded from the detailed analysis.

Results: During the study period, 26,180,200 opioid prescriptions were issued to 1,223,503 individuals (55.9% female, 89.9% non-cancer diagnoses). The greatest increase in annual prescribing was in the 18–24 age group (10,470%), from 0.08 to 8....