An opioid pain medication prescription for 7 or fewer days appears sufficient for most patients presenting with acute pain in primary care, according to a CDC analysis.

Concerns that overprescribing to patients with acute pain may be contributing to the ongoing opioid crisis have led some states to restrict prescribing and the CDC to issue 2016 guidelines on more judicious prescribing. To assess patterns of primary care prescribing of opioids for acute pain prior to these developments, CDC scientists analyzed 2014 commercial insurance claims data on 176 607 primary care visits for 1 of 10 acute pain conditions, including back pain with radiculopathy, back pain without radiculopathy, neck pain, joint pain, tendon or bursal pain, muscle strains or sprains, musculoskeletal injury, urinary calculus, headache, and dental pain. Only 7.6% of patients who saw a primary care physician for acute pain filled an opioid prescription within 7 days of their visit and just 17.8% of those patients received at least 1 refill of the prescription within 30 days, the authors found.