Summaries of recommended items used to identify patients with life-threatening illnesses who are at high risk of aberrant opioid medication-taking behaviours and opioid overdose
| Summary topic | Strongly recommend assessing for | Consider assessing for | Agreement level n (%) | Total no. of experts |
| Items to identify patients with life- threatening illnesses who are at high risk of aberrant opioid medication-taking behaviours | Alcoholism using validated tools (ie, CAGE, Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Testalcohol screening tool) | Young age (18–24 years old) | 18 (82) | 22 |
| History of non-medical drug use (ie, cocaine) | Older age (65 years or older) | |||
| Current non-medical drug use | Alcohol family history | |||
| History of injection drug use | History of tobacco use | |||
| Current injection drug use | Current tobacco use | |||
| Post-traumatic stress | Depression | |||
| Sexual abuse history | Anxiety | |||
| Criminal record(s) related to substance use disorders | Personality disorders | |||
| Somatisation | ||||
| Premorbid chronic pain | ||||
| Unstable housing | ||||
| Financial instability | ||||
| Items to identify patients with life- threatening illnesses who are at high risk of opioid overdose | Benzodiazepine use (ie, lorazepam) | Older age (65 years old and greater) | 17 (81%) | 21 |
| Alcohol use | Renal impairment | |||
| History of previous opioid overdose | Liver impairment | |||
| Receiving opioid prescriptions from two or more physicians | Muscle relaxant use (ie, cyclobenzaprine) | |||
| History of substance use disorder | Sleep medication/hypnotic use (ie, zopiclone) | |||
| Active substance use disorder | Methadone use for pain management | |||
| Methadone use for opioid use disorder management | ||||
| Opioid-naïve patients | ||||
| Untreated psychiatric conditions (ie, schizophrenia) | ||||
| History of obstructive sleep apnoea | ||||
| Filling opioid prescriptions at two or more pharmacies |