No Meaningful Increase Seen in New Opioid Use Disorder Diagnoses With Routine Screening

Implementation of opioid use disorder screening does not increase percentage of patients with new diagnosis

By Elana Gotkine HealthDay Reporter

MONDAY, Oct. 16, 2023 (HealthDay News) — Implementation of opioid use disorder (OUD) screening in primary care does not increase the percentage of patients with a new OUD diagnosis in a clinically meaningful way, according to a research letter published online Oct. 17 in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

John C. Fortney, Ph.D., from the University of Washington in Seattle, and colleagues compared the percentage of primary care patients who are newly diagnosed with OUD before and after implementation of universal OUD screening. The study was designed to examine whether real-world screening actually increases identification by recruiting 20 diverse primary care clinics to participate in a pre-post screening trial. The number and percentage of existing patients with new OUD diagnoses in the six months before and after screening initiation was calculated for each clinic.

The researchers found that 0.99 percent of the 167,710 existing unique patients with visits during the six-month postscreening period had OUD diagnoses, including 0.11 percent with new diagnoses. The median change was 0.03 percent in patients with a new OUD diagnosis, with a median pre-post increase of 1.5 patients per clinic with a new OUD diagnosis.

“The percentage of patients with a new OUD diagnosis did not increase in a clinically meaningful way after OUD screening in routine care,” the authors write. “To address OUD in their communities, clinics may also want to conduct outreach activities and publicize their commitment to accepting new patients seeking care for OUD.”