Introduction: Nausea and vomiting (NV) are common side effects of opioid use and limiting factors in pain management. This study sought to quantify the frequency of antiemetic prescribing and the impact of NV on health care resource utilization and costs in outpatients prescribed opioids for acute pain. The perspective was that of a commercial health plan.
Methods: Medical and pharmacy claims from IMS PharMetrics Plus were used to identify patients initiating opioid therapy with a prescription for an oxycodone-, hydrocodone- or codeine-containing immediate-release product for acute use (≤15-day supply) between October 1, 2013 and September 30, 2014. Patients with a medical claim for NV (International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification codes 787.0x), with or without an antiemetic prescription fill, were compared with patients with no NV claim or antiemetic prescription fill to assess differences in all-cause health care utilization and costs over 1 month. Propensity score matching (PSM) was used to adjust for between-group differences in baseline patient characteristics.
Results: The co-prescribing of opioids with antiemetic agents was 10.2%. After PSM (n = 45,790 per group), patients with NV claims had significantly more hospitalizations (11.5% vs 4.2%), emergency department visits (65.0% vs 12.1%), and physician office visits (85.2% vs 64.5%) compared with patients with no NV claims (all P < 0.0001). Mean total health care costs were higher among patients with a NV claim versus those without evidence of the side effect ($6290 vs $2309; P < 0.0001). Among patients with a recent hospitalization, patients with NV claims had higher rates of 30-day rehospitalization than those with no NV claims (24.4% vs 3.0%; P < 0.0001).
Conclusions: Among outpatients prescribed opioids for management of acute pain, co-prescribing with antiemetics was low, and the economic burden associated with NV was high. Efforts to prevent NV in patients receiving opioid therapy may improve patient outcomes and provide cost savings to the health care system.
Funding: Daiichi Sankyo, Inc.
Keywords: Acute pain; Analgesia; Analgesics; Antiemetics; Health care costs; Health care utilization; Opioid; Opioid-induced nausea and vomiting; Outpatient; Rehospitalization.