Barriers to accurately assessing prescription opioid misuse on surveys

ABSTRACT

Surveys are the leading method of gathering data on prevalence and correlates of prescription opioid misuse. As the opioid crisis continues in the United States, reliable data on misuse have become increasingly important as under- and overreporting is common. This perspective discusses six potential barriers to researchers accurately assessing opioid misuse on surveys. These barriers include lack of respondent drug knowledge, researchers not properly defining opioids for respondents, querying overall opioid misuse rather than misuse of specific opioids, varying terminology (e.g., of opioids and misuse), and lack of understanding of medical versus nonmedical use or misuse. Finally, a recent barrier is use of counterfeit or adulterated drugs that contain fentanyl, its analogs, or other new synthetic opioids, which can lead to underreporting of exposure. Survey researchers should consider such barriers when querying opioid misuse.

KEYWORDS:

• Opioids
• survey methods
• data collection
• measurement error
• epidemiology

Declaration of Interest

The author declares no conflict of interest.

Additional information

Funding

Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number K01DA038800 (PI: Palamar). The content is solely the responsibility of the author and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. The author would also like to thank the reviewers for their thoughtful recommendations during the review process.