Background: Opioid use has increased significantly in the last 3 decades and has well established adverse effects. Hip fractures are increasing and a major public health concern. Prescription opioids in hospital has been shown to lead to chronic opioid use.
Aims: The objective of the study was to describe the prevalence of postoperative opioid use in hip fracture patients and understand how healthcare and patient-level factors may be associated with persistent postoperative opioid use
Methods: This was a prospective observational pilot study which included patients ≥65 years of age (≥50 years of age for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander patients) who underwent hip fracture surgery between August 2023 and January 2024 at the Lyell McEwin Hospital (LMH). Postoperative opioid data were obtained via a telephone-based survey of five questions at 120 days post-surgery.
Results: This study consisted of 38 patients, with 29 patients completing follow up. There were 24% who were lost to follow up. Of the 24 (82.8%) opioid naïve patients, 2 (8.33%) became persistent postoperative opioid users at follow up. Of the 5 (17.2%) patients identified as pre-existing opioid users, 60% had increased existing opioid use. Chronic opioid users also had a higher frailty classification using the Clinical Frailty Scale.
Conclusion: Persistent postoperative opioid use may be linked to postoperative opioid prescriptions and may be more common among patients with higher clinical frailty scores. This pilot study has also provided important insights to refine patient recruitment, data collection, and follow-up methodologies for a future, larger study.