Using Opioid Painkillers in Excess may Intensify Depression

Scherrer added that thus, a strong potential explanation of their finding that increasing opioid dose increases risk of depression could be that the patients who increase dose were the longer using patients. This is logical as longer use is associated with tolerance and a need to increase opioids to achieve pain relief.

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Scherrer concluded that they hope to find risk factors such as opioid misuse that could be in the pathway from chronic opioid use to new onset depression, adding that this would expand the targets for intervention to limit the risk of depression in patients who need long-term opioid therapy.

The study appears in the journal Pain.

Source: ANI