Opioid Addiction: A Case Study

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Opioids or narcotics is a class of drugs that can reduce the unpleasant sensory experience we know as pain. Its analgesic response alleviates moderate to severe pain. When appropriately used, opioid hold great promise to patients who has to endure pain associated to the long healing process related to surgery, chemotherapy, and other chronic diseases. However, the boundary between its therapeutic effects and the potential risk for addiction is very narrow. Opioids transformed from the drug reigned as the “best, strongest pain medication,” (Purdue Pharma, 1998) to the drug responsible for the leading cause of poisoning death in the United States (Green, 2017). Molecularly, pain starts with the activation of mu nociceptors, pain receptors found …show more content…
First, we need to explore what leads to an opioid addiction or OUD. What type of usage characteristics and events that leads to addiction? What does addiction look like? Secondly, we need to examine the characteristics of chronic non-cancer pain (CNCP). How are patients with CNCP treated? What are the methods with COT for the treatment of CNCP? Once we answer these two main questions, we can start drawing parallels between the nursing practices and events promoting OUD. What are some nursing interventions that unintendedly lead to tolerance and addiction to opioid? How knowledgeable are nurses with pain management and opioid risk? Who are more prone to these effects? If so, how are they identified by nurses? How are they treated differently? After scrutinizing the gaps in nursing interventions, we can finally lead to a discussion on quality improvements on current nursing practices that are upheld by evidence-based studies. What are alternative nursing interventions for opioid naïve patients to prevent addiction? What are nursing tools that can prevent OUD in patients who has been on …show more content…
Even though opioid sales increased since 1999, data from the Drug Enforcement Administration (2012) reported that Americans are not report a corresponding decrease in pain. Instead, there was a corresponding increase in death associated to opioid overdoses. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions (2014), oxycodone, hydrocodone and heroin overdose took 28, 647 lives in 2014; a 19 percent increase from previous year. If there are other preventatives measures, then the future generation can benefit from this study. It is critical that alternative pain management should be tried and exhausted before trying COT; especially with young patients or opioid naïve patients. These alternative methods can influence the way young people can first relieve their pain as means to prevent their risk for
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