Abstract
In line with a nationwide commitment to decrease opioid prescribing, in October 2017, our department implemented a new departmental policy to cease routine provision of opioid prescriptions at the time of discharge following vaginal delivery. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of this policy on the number of discharge opioid prescriptions provided and outpatient encounters observed postpartum. This was a retrospective cohort study of patients who underwent vaginal delivery at our institution from November 2016 to January 2018. We reviewed delivery and postpartum records for patients 18 years or older, without chronic opioid use or contraindication to nonsteroidal antiinflammatory medication use. The primary outcome was the proportion of patients provided with an opioid prescription at the time of discharge following vaginal delivery. The secondary outcome was the number of unscheduled patient encounters related to pain in the 6-week postpartum period. Fisher's exact test was used to compare these outcomes before and after implementation of the new departmental opioid-prescribing policy. A total of 1188 charts were reviewed; among those charts, 810 met the inclusion criteria. Notably, 405 patients delivered before the guideline, and 405 patients delivered after its implementation. After the implementation of the new departmental policy, there was a 10-fold decrease in opioid prescriptions provided from 323 (79.8%) to 29 (7.2%) (P<.01). Although the number of unscheduled outpatient encounters postpartum increased slightly from 22 to 37 encounters after the implementation of the new departmental policy, this difference was not statistically significant (P=.08). Limiting opioid prescribing after vaginal delivery is associated with a considerable decrease in the number of discharge opioid prescriptions provided and does not significantly increase the number of outpatient encounters related to pain postpartum.
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