N/A
N=286
Guiding Aging Long-Term Opioid Therapy Users Into Safer Use Patterns
Pain · Opioid Use
Bottom Line
View on ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT05808127 ↗Enrolled (actual)
286
Serious AEs
0.2%
Results posted
Apr 2026
Primary outcome: Primary: Count of Referrals to Non-opioid Care — 3.075; 3.61 Count of referrals — p=0.213
Study Design & Population
- Study type
- Interventional
- Phase
- N/A
- Interventions
- PainTracker (Behavioral); Current Opioid Misuse Measure (Behavioral)
- Age
- Older Adult · 65+ yrs
- Sex
- All
- Sponsor
- University of Southern California
- Primary completion
- May 2024
Outcome Measures
| Outcome | Result | p-value |
|---|---|---|
| PRIMARY Count of Referrals to Non-opioid Care |
3.075; 3.61 | 0.213 |
| PRIMARY Count of Antidepressant Orders |
3.45; 3.43 | 0.38 |
| SECONDARY Clinician Monthly Milligram Morphine Equivalent (MME) |
81.86; 82.14 | 0.129 |
| SECONDARY Benzodiazepine Prescribing |
7.32; 5.78 | 0.033 sig |
Summary
Patients on long-term opioid therapy are aging and now face magnified risk of harm with continued high-dose opioid use. These increased risks are due to age-related changes in drug metabolism, multi-morbidity, and polypharmacy. The dominant approach to mitigate these risks is to screen for aberrant patient opioid behaviors so that clinicians can pre-empt misuse early through review of contractual opioid agreements or by lowering patient dosages. By focusing on opioid misuse alone, this strategy encourages forced opioid tapering that is associated with opioid overdose and mental health crisis. Directing clinician attention to the comorbid conditions associated with opioid misuse may promote safer and more effective care.
The objective of this study is to assess the comparative effectiveness of PainTracker, a set of questions that targets a broad range of problems associated with pain, in a randomized controlled trial involving 286 Northwestern Medicine clinicians treating Chronic Opioid Use Registry patients (n=1451).
Eligibility Criteria
Inclusion Criteria
- Patients age 65 or older on long-term opioid therapy within the Northwestern Medicine Chronic Opioid Use registry system with at least one primary care encounter in the past 12 months.
Exclusion criteria
- Patient visits with active cancer diagnoses
Data sourced from ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT05808127). Outcome figures and adverse-event rates are extracted automatically from the registry's posted results and are provided for clinician reference, not as a substitute for the primary publication.