Patients Report Worse Outcomes With Higher Opioid Doses

This article has been updated with a commentary.

Concerns with the safety and adverse effects of opioids have grown with increases in prescribing and dose, and higher doses have been associated with worse patient-reported outcomes in a study by researchers at Veterans Affairs (VA) and Kaiser Permanente health systems.

Benjamin Morasco, PhD, and his colleagues at the VA Portland Health Care System and the Kaiser Permanente Northwest Center for Health Research, in Portland, Ore., administered a