Opioid Therapy in Patients with a History of Substance Abuse

A range of aberrant drug-taking behaviours can occur in patients who are undergoing treatment for chronic pain, especially if opioid therapy is involved. Assessing and understanding these behaviours, and their relationship to addiction (or substance use disorder), can be difficult but it is necessary for assuring quality pain management. Aberrant drug-taking behaviour may be evident, for example, when a patient with pain is unilaterally escalating doses of opioids or using the medications to treat other symptoms or when prescriptions are being mishandled. In patients with a history of substance abuse, these are often serious developments to which a clinician must know how to react. These complex behaviours may be indicative of addiction or may be simply a reaction to under-medicated pain. The clinician therefore is challenged to understand such behaviours and plan interventions accordingly.