Table 3.

Standardized Differences of Characteristics of Patients with High-dose, Long-term Opioid Therapy (HLOT) between patients who stayed in HLOT and transitioned to discontinuation in fiscal year 2016

Variable groups	Variables	Stayed in HLOT	Transitioned to discontinuation	Standardized difference (%)
Number of patients in each group		26,604	2786	—
Patient characteristics	Age	60.3	57.8	22.1
	Number of months in HLOT state during the baseline year	10.8	9.8	32.7
	Average MME during the baseline year	187.7	170.0	14.4
	Male	93.5%	93.8%	-1.3
	Married	58.1%	51.3%	13.7
	Race; White	83.1%	82.9%	0.5
	Race: Black	9.4%	9.7%	-1.0
	Race: Other	7.5%	7.4%	0.4
Elixhauser comorbidities* plus opioid use disorder	Alcohol abuse	7.1%	11.5%	-14.8
	Depression	53.9%	58.4%	-9.2
	Diabetes—uncomplicated	30.2%	26.5%	8.4
	Drug abuse	13.1%	22.2%	-24.1
	Hypertension—uncomplicated	58.8%	54.9%	7.8
	Other neurological disorder	20.7%	18.6%	5.1
	Opioid use disorder†	7.9%	13.7%	-18.9
	Paralysis	3.6%	2.7%	5.1

MME, morphine milligram equivalent per day; HLOT, high-dose, long-term opioid therapy

*This table only presents the Elixhauser comorbidities that had standardized difference greater than 5%. The full list is available in Appendix Table 3

†Opioid use disorder is counted towards drug abuse using Elixhauser comorbidity definitions. Drug abuse includes opioids, cocaine, hallucinogen, sedative, cannabis, and other drugs