Assessing risk for nonmedical opioid use among patients with cancer: Stability of the CAGE-AID questionnaire across clinical care settings.

Objectives: The Cut down, Annoyed, Guilty, and Eye opener- Adapted to Include Drugs (CAGE-AID) questionnaire (CA) is a validated screening tool used to assess risk for nonmedical opioid use (NMOU) in patients receiving opioids for cancer pain. Data on consistencies and variations in responses to the CA between different clinical settings are lacking. We evaluated the frequency and consistency in scoring of the CA among patients seen between the first inpatient consult (T1) and the first outpatient follow-up (T2) visits.

Implementation of Patient Reported Outcomes in Outpatient Palliative Care: From Paper to Computer.

Background: This quality improvement project aimed to transition completion of Edmonton Symptom Assessment System (ESAS) at our supportive care clinic from paper to electronic format.

Measures: Proportion of patients who completed electronic ESAS (eESAS).

Intervention: Starting July 2018, patients could complete eESAS 24h before check-in (eESAS-before), eESAS after check-in (eESAS-after) or on paper (pESAS).

Physical and Psychosocial Symptoms of Young Adult Patients Referred to the Supportive Care Mobile Team.

Young adult (YA) aged cancer patients have unique psychosocial needs with studies indicating more symptoms and emotional distress compared to older patients. Our study aimed to compare clinical characteristics and symptom distress between YAs and older adults. We retrospectively studied 896 randomly selected patients across 3 age groups: 18-39 YAs ( = 297), 40-64 ( = 300), and 65 and older ( = 299).

Rapid Transition to Virtual Care during the COVID-19 Epidemic: Experience of a Supportive Care Clinic at a Tertiary Care Cancer Center.

COVID-19 pandemic necessitated rapid adoption of telemedicine at our supportive care center (SCC) to ensure continuity of care while maintaining social distancing. To document the process of transition from in-person to virtual care. The charts of 1744 consecutive patients in our SCC located in the United States were retrospectively reviewed during the four weeks before transition (February 14-March 12), four weeks after transition (March 20-April 16), and transition week (March 13-March 19).

Frequency of and Factors Associated With Nonmedical Opioid Use Behavior Among Patients With Cancer Receiving Opioids for Cancer Pain.

Importance: One of the main aims of research on nonmedical opioid use (NMOU) is to reduce the frequency of NMOU behaviors through interventions such as universal screening, reduced opioid exposure, and more intense follow-up of patients with elevated risk. The absence of data on the frequency of NMOU behavior is the major barrier to conducting research on NMOU.

Objective: To determine the overall frequency of and the independent predictors for NMOU behavior.

Opioid Prescription Trends Among Patients With Cancer Referred to Outpatient Palliative Care Over a 6-Year Period.

Introduction: In the United States, opioid regulations have become increasingly stringent in recent years. Increased regulatory scrutiny, in part, is related to heightened awareness through literature and a recent media blitz on the opioid prescription epidemic. These regulations have the potential to impact prescription trends by health care providers.