Background and Importance Adequate pain control is a basic and unquestionable human right. Opioids are the most potent pharmacological treatment for a variety of pains. Opiod use is always of interest. due to their potential overuse and abuse and the contrary limited access to them. Hospital care data on opioid utilisation is scarce in the literature and no data is available for our country.

Aim and Objectives Therefore we aimed to analyse opioid utilisation in hospitals nationwide between 2015 and 2021.

Material and Methods Population based drug utilisation sales data were obtained on analgesics (ATC code: N02A). Utilisation scale and trends were calculated based on the WHO defined Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical Classification/Defined Daily Dose (ATC/DDD) methodology. Aggregated utilisation data were standardised for 100 patient-days (i.e. DDD per 100 patient-days). National and regional level analyses were performed.

Results Total opioid values ranged between 8.12 to 8.86 DDDs per 100 patient-days in various study years. Oral administration of opioid analgesics was dominant with relative share of 53.9% in 2015 and 60.1% in 2021. Tramadol, fentanyl, morphine, and nalbufine were the most used opioid analgesics in 2015 with 62.9%, 22%, 6.8% and 2.5% relative share while in 2021 the top agents were tramadol (42.3% share), fentanyl (25.9%) and then two tramadol combinations on the 3rd and 4th place in the ranking. Large interregional differences were detected (5.7 vs 17.2 DDD per 100 patient-days) with maximum/minimum ratio of 3.03 in the final year of analysis.

Conclusion and Relevance Trends of opioid utilisation in national hospitals has not changed over time, with the dominant use of weak oral opioids. Regional disparities are substantial.

Acknowledgment ITM-NKFIA-TKP2021-EGA-32.

Conflict of Interest No conflict of interest.