MedScan Laboratories, Inc.

          Prescription drug abuse is the use of medication without a prescription, in a way other than prescribed, or for the experience or feeling elicited. According to several national surveys, prescription medications, such as those used to treat pain, attention deficit disorders, and anxiety, are being abused at a rate second only to marijuana among illicit drug users. The consequences of this abuse have been steadily worsening, reflected in increased treatment admissions, emergency room visits, and overdose deaths.

Can you tell if your patient is taking his/her medication properly?

Even tho monitoring your patients behavoir is important it is not adequate to know if the patiend is misusing their medications. Monitoring the patients behavior as well as drug monitoring testing will give you the most insight your patients drug usage.

• In a 2009 study of over 900,000 samples 29% were positive for nonprescribed medication and 38% were negative for prescribed medication.² 

 There are many reasons why pain patients may not be taking their medication as prescribed:

• Due to fear of addiction will not take the medication.
• compulsive use because of addiction.
• Sell the medication to someone else for profit.
• Abuse the medication intentionally

 References

1. (2011, October). Retrieved November 2012, from NIDA: National Institute on Drug Abuse: http://www.drugabuse.gov/sites/default/files/rrprescription.pdf

2.Popul Health Manag. 2009 Aug;12(4):185-90. doi: 10.1089/pop.2009.0015.

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