The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has released updated and expanded recommendations for clinicians providing pain care for adults with short- and long-term pain. These clinical recommendations, published in the CDC Clinical Practice Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Pain, replace and addresses the agency’s 2016 guideline that caused some patients to experience abrupt loss of access to needed pain treatment.
The updated guideline focuses on the following areas:
- Determining whether to initiate opioids for pain;
- Selecting opioids and determining opioid dosages;
- Deciding duration of initial opioid prescription and conducting follow-up; and
- Assessing risk and addressing potential harms of opioid use.
A summary for physicians, “Guidelines at a Glance,” is available here.
