Riassunto dello studio

Ninety-five patients who underwent knee arthroscopy surgery with partial meniscal debridement randomized to receive post-surgery prescription of a prescription sent directly to the pharmacy for oxycodone (5 mg of 20 tablets), or given an optional physical copy of the prescription (oxycodone 5 mg of 20 tablets) with instructions to pick up only if necessary. All patients received a multimodal analgesia protocol of 325 mg Aspirin (2x/day for 28 days), 500 mg naproxen (2x/day for 28 days), and 1000 mg Acetaminophen (3x/day for 7 days). The primary outcome of interest was the total number of Oxycodone tablets used post-surgery. Secondary outcomes of interest were number of days opioids were taken post-surgery, pain measured on a Visual Analogue Scale (VAS), and the incidence of adverse events. In addition, other outcomes measured were the length of operation, and number of tablets taken and remaining. All variables were measured at 21 days post-surgery, except for VAS pain which was was measured at 2 hours, 24 hours, 48 hours, 7 days, and 21 days follow-up. The results revealed no statistically significant differences between the 2 groups in all outcomes except for the total number of tablets taken, which was lower in the electronic prescription group vs physical prescription group (169 vs. 211; p<0.001). Furthermore, the mean number of tablets remaining per patient (16.5+/-5.3 vs. 13.8+/-7.2; p=0.04) and the total number of tablets remaining (791 vs. 649; p<0.001) were also found statistically significantly higher in the electronic prescription group compared to the physical prescription group.