Table 1.
Baseline opioid prescribing of PDMP early registrants and non-registrants, before and after propensity score matchinga
| Before matching | After propensity score matching | |||||
| Prescribing metric, per prescriber during the 2-month baseline time period, mean (SD) | Non-Registered n = 12,005 |
Registered n = 964 |
SMDb | Non-Registered n = 927 |
Registered n = 927 |
SMDb |
| Primary prescribing outcomes | ||||||
| Opioid patients with an average daily MME ≥90 over the time period (2 months)c | 0.79 (3.9) | 6.06 (17.0) | 0.428 | 3.9 (9.9) | 4.5 (11.4) | 0.063 |
| % of opioid prescriptions that overlap a sedative-hypnotic prescription within 30 daysd | 5.8 (14.5) | 9.6 (10.6) | 0.296 | 9.5 (13.3) | 9.2 (10.5) | 0.024 |
| Patients with ≥ 3 opioid prescribers in a 2 mo. interval | 1.3 (3.2) | 4.8 (6.2) | 0.717 | 4.5 (6.4) | 4.5 (5.7) | <0.001 |
| Inappropriate opioid prescriptionse | 0.23 (0.9) | 0.59 (1.1) | 0.354 | 0.60 (1.4) | 0.56 (1.1) | 0.030 |
| Secondary prescribing outcomes | ||||||
| Opioid prescriptions | 18.5 (44.2) | 88.0 (125) | 0.743 | 72.9 (88.2) | 76.3 (103) | 0.036 |
| Benzodiazepine prescriptions | 6.0 (20.5) | 29.7 (48.0) | 0.643 | 24.8 (43.5) | 25.8 (39.3) | 0.025 |
| Units per opioid prescription (most often pills) | 26.7 (40.4) | 49.0 (36.3) | 0.583 | 47.6 (37.4) | 47.5 (35.6) | 0.002 |
| Patients who filled at least one opioid prescription | 12.0 (24.8) | 51.1 (56.6) | 0.897 | 44.8 (47.4) | 46.0 (49.3) | 0.026 |
| % of patients with overlapping long-acting and short-acting opioid prescriptions within 30 d | 2.8 (10.0) | 6.0 (9.2) | 0.329 | 5.4 (10.3) | 5.5 (8.5) | 0.017 |
| Opioid prescriptions per patient with at least one opioid prescription | 1.4 (0.60) | 1.6 (0.51) | 0.292 | 1.6 (0.93) | 1.5 (0.49) | 0.054 |
| Total MME per prescriptionc | 273 (606) | 616 (692) | 0.529 | 568 (754) | 578 (649) | 0.014 |
| Total MME per patient with at least one opioid prescriptionc | 694.6 (1,851.6) | 1,454.0 (1,825.7) | 0.413 | 1,298.0 (1,713.7) | 1,345.6 (1,653.7) | 0.028 |
| Patients with ≥ 3 opioid-dispensing pharmacies in 2 mo. | 0.91 (3.1) | 4.5 (8.9) | 0.538 | 3.4 (6.1) | 3.7 (6.4) | 0.056 |
| Prescribers with at least 1 opioid prescription in baseline period, n (%) | 7,089 (59.1) | 878 (91.1) | 0.797 | 846 (91.3) | 841 (90.7) | 0.019 |
| Geographic Location | ||||||
| Prescribers in an urban location, n (%) | 9,538 (80) | 707 (73) | 0.144 | 629 (68) | 672 (73) | 0.102 |
Matching based on all covariates and a caliper of .05 SD of the propensity score using “baselline” data from October – November, 2011. Registrants are those who registered in December 2011 – February 2012, and non-registrants were those who never registered before November, 2014.
SMD = Standardized Mean Difference
Metrics that use MME exclude prescriptions that did not have complete conversion factor, quantity, or strength information (0.2% of opioid prescriptions). MME calculations exclude buprenorphine and pentazocine.
“Sedative-hypnotics” included benzodiazepines, non-benzodiazepine sedative-hypnotics, and carisoprodol.
Inappropriate opioid prescriptions are those where a second prescription with the same drug name, from a different prescriber, was filled within 7 days of a first prescription that contained ≥30 pills.