[Trends in hospital consumption of analgesics after the implementation of a pain performance improvement plan].

Background: Pain management committee established a pain performance improvement plan in 2012.

Objectives: The aim of the study was to assess the trends in analgesic consumption in a tertiary teaching hospital and the associated economic impact.

Methods: A descriptive, retrospective study was conducted between 2011 and 2015. The analysis included: anti-inflammatory and antirheumatic products non-steroids, opioid analgesics and other analgesics and antipyretics. Data are converted into DDD/100 bed-days to analyze consumption trends. Main outcome measure: assessment of the analgesic consumption after the implementation of a pain performance improvement plan.

Results: Overall, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory and antirheumatic products consumption decreased in 24.8 DDD/100 bed-days (−28.3%), accounting for most of the total analgesic consumption decrease (−13%) and total cost (−44.3%). Opioid consumption increased markedly from 22.3 DDD/100 bed-days in 2011 to 26.5 DDD/100 bed-days in 2015 (+18.9%). In 2011, the most consumed opioid was morphine (8.6 DDD/100 bed-days). However, there was an increasing trend in fentanyl consumption (from 8.1 to 12.1 DDD/100 bed-days in 2015), which resulted in fentanyl replacing morphine from the most consumed opioid in 2015 (12.1 DDD/100 bed-days). In 2015, the group of other analgesics and antipyretics represented 46.2% of the total analgesic consumption. Acetaminophen was the most commonly consumed analgesic drug (53.2 DDD/100 bed-days in 2015) and had the highest total cost, it represented 55.4% of the overall cost in 2015.

Conclusion: Opioid consumption showed an increasing trend during the 5 year period, with fentanyl replacing morphine as the most used opioid. In general, analgesics diminished use was due to the decreasing trend of consumption of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory and antirheumatic products.