Conclusion
Patients receiving long-term opioid analgesics for CLBP have minor differences when compared with patients not taking opioids. This has important clinical implications when considering long-term treatment for patients with CLBP.
Methods
Patients with CLBP who were either taking (N = 18) or not taking (N = 22) opioids daily for 3 or more months were recruited from a tertiary care private hospital and compared with healthy adults (N = 20). All groups were administered validated questionnaires to assess depression, anxiety, and stress; a cognitive test of memory, attention, and executive function; and a peripheral blood draw to measure proinflammatory (IL-1β, IL-2, IL-8, IL-12p70, TNF-α, and IFN-γ), anti-inflammatory (IL-4, IL-10, and IL-13), and pleiotropic (IL-6) cytokine concentrations. Patients also completed pain-specific questionnaires.
Results
Patients receiving opioid analgesics performed significantly (P < 0.05) worse in attention and had significantly (P < 0.05) lower pain self-efficacy beliefs than those patients not taking opioids. Patient groups did not differ in mean pain severity or pain interference scores, tests of memory and executive function, and mean plasma cytokine concentrations, despite long-term opioid analgesics.