clinical practice
There is no ideal here, and it’s a complex
problem. We have alternative medications
like paracetamol or ibuprofen that could
be prescribed, but it’s not so much just
prescription medication that needs
to be prescribed. It’s also a range of
multidisciplinary care options, and they’re
often not available, and this is one of the
problems. If you just simply remove opioids
from the market, there’s a whole range of
people who will not get access to quality
pain relief.
The standard in this area for best practice
is multidisciplinary care, ensuring that
people get access to the range of care and
treatment options they need to support
their particular circumstances.
So besides offering alternatives and
ensuring that people have access
to multidisciplinary care, how can
Australians be supported to stop
misusing opioids?
We need to also educate the public, and
health professionals as well, who aren’t
always aware of the options when it comes
to chronic pain. It’s a complex, difficult
issue, and the reality is we often think that
opioids are the go-to treatment for pain,
and it’s become the go-to treatment in
many instances for chronic pain, when
in fact the evidence shows that it’s not
particularly effective for chronic pain.
There may be some cases in which it
is appropriate to use, but they’re pretty
limited, really. On balance, we know
that for chronic pain, we shouldn’t be
prescribing opioids.
So, we need to educate the public
and the health professional community
about the alternatives, about how chronic
pain can be self-managed, and what the
alternatives are in terms of prescription
medication, and what the alternatives are
in the instance of multidisciplinary care
options. Because we know that physio,
exercise, a different range of treatments
and support can be very e