Initial Opioid Prescription and Number Needed to Harm.

Prescription opioids are an important step in the development of persistent opioid use. Our study estimates the change in long-term opioid use before and after a 2017 regulatory update on acute pain prescribing. Prescribing information was abstracted from the Rhode Island Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP). Using the changed rates of initial opioid prescriptions of 8 or more days, and a calculated Number Needed to Harm for prescriptions of that duration, the rates of long-term opioid use were estimated decrease by 111 long-term opioid users per month.