Abstract
Objective: To assess the impact of the human opioid epidemic and associated shortages in drug supply on US general practice veterinarians.Design: Cross-sectional study.Sample: Members of the Veterinary Information Network (VIN).Procedures: An electronic survey was used to examine veterinarians' views regarding opioid use in veterinary medicine and the impact of the opioid shortage on the provision of care. The survey was distributed via the VIN data collection portal from October 12–November 6, 2018.Results: 697 veterinarians completed the survey. Most (99.7%) reported using, dispensing or prescribing opioids in veterinary practice. The most commonly used opioids were buprenorphine, tramadol and butorphanol. While most veterinarians (83.3%) reported difficulty in ordering opioids over the last 6 months, this decreased to 59.0% in the last month. The most difficult drugs to obtain were hydromorphone, morphine, injectable fentanyl, and oxymorphone. The reported rate of difficulty in obtaining all these drugs lessened over time. However, the opioid shortage caused significant difficulty in providing appropriate pain management for 41.1% of participants, and affected the ability of 44.8% of respondents to provide optimal anesthesia.Conclusions and Clinical Relevance: Veterinarians' ability to provide opioids for their patients has been impacted by the opioid shortage, with a greater impact on full mu opioid agonists as compared to drugs like butorphanol, buprenorphine, and tramadol. The results confirm the important role of opioid analgesics in the delivery of modern veterinary medicine and highlight the importance of medical health professionals being able to access these critical medications.
Highlights
Anecdotal evidence suggests that veterinarians have been struggling to obtain sufficient quantities of opioid analgesics for their patients
US Opioid Epidemic and Veterinarians the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the Opioid Overdose Crisis has the following characteristics as of January 2019: “Every day, more than 130 people in the United States die after overdosing on opioids [1]
The United States is in the midst of an opioid addiction epidemic [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8] while simultaneously experiencing a shortage of opioids for use in legitimate medical situations, including the delivery of veterinary medicine
Summary
Anecdotal evidence suggests that veterinarians have been struggling to obtain sufficient quantities of opioid analgesics for their patients. The United States is in the midst of an opioid addiction epidemic [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8] while simultaneously experiencing a shortage of opioids for use in legitimate medical situations, including the delivery of veterinary medicine. There are numerous anecdotal stories of pet owners seeking opioids from veterinarians for their own use as well as owners requesting opioids for their pets when they are not needed or recommended [10]. In response to this crisis, many states are passing laws to help monitor opioid prescriptions. Other states have begun limiting opioid prescriptions to 5–7 days [11]
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