"Patients With Mental Disorders Get Half Of All Opioid Prescriptions" - Vickie Connor
Adults with a mental illness receive more than 50 percent of the 115 million opioid prescriptions in the United States annually, according to a study. The results prompted researchers to suggest that improving pain management for people with mental health problems “is critical to reduce national dependency on opioids.” “The opioids are prescribed primarily for pain,” but patients with mental illness find that the drugs alleviate their mental issues too, said Edwin Salsitz, MD, assistant clinical professor of psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. With no objective scale for measuring pain, doctors are hampered in treating patients with chronic discomfort.
- Edwin Salsitz, MD, Assistant Clinical Professor, Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai