Background

Opioid overdoses and deaths related to opioid abuse continue to climb. In 2023, 81,083 Americans were reported to have died from opioid overdoses (78.7% of all US drug overdoses).¹ This was a substantial rise from 21,088 in 2010.¹ In 2022, the Surgeon General of the United States, Dr. Vivek Murphy recommended that all at-risk individuals and friends and family members of such individuals keep the life-saving reversal drug, naloxone on hand to be utilized in the event of an overdose.² In February 2018, the American Dental Association (ADA) released updated recommendations for using opioids for dental pain and reaffirmed the use of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory (NSAID) analgesics as first-line therapy for acute pain management.³ There is also data that sheds light on vulnerable populations, including children and teenagers, for whom exposure to opioids may be particularly damaging.^4,5 Dentists are responsible for prescribing an estimated 23% of all opioid prescriptions for children and 9% of all opioid prescriptions dispensed overall.^6,7 These prescribing rates make dentists the second-largest group of medical specialists who prescribe opioid medications.⁷ Further, patients report not using 54% of opioids prescribed during dental surgery.⁸ Opioids that are not used in the initial prescription may be stored and diverted for non-prescription usage. Despite the volume of opioid prescriptions written by dentists, research suggests that dentists have not fully adopted recommended risk mitigation strategies, including screening for prescription drug abuse or misuse, verifying current and past prescriptions using state prescription drug monitoring programs, and providing patient education on safe use, storage, and disposal of medications when prescribing opioid medications for pain management.^9,10