Prevalence and services for the treatment of chronic pain at residential substance treatment centers.

Introduction: Studies suggest that a large proportion of patients with substance use disorders (SUDs) also have underlying chronic pain. There is limited data on prevalence of chronic pain treatment as a component of residential substance use treatment. This initiative sought to investigate the prevalence and type of chronic pain services offered at these residential programs.Methods: This study was a retrospective review of information obtained from residential substance use treatment facility websites contained in SAMHSA's treatment navigator. Nine hundred-fifty out of 2952 websites were randomly selected for analysis. The primary outcome was prevalence of facilities that had chronic pain programs. Services offered were specified as available. Descriptive statistics were used to summarize data.Results: Nine-hundred nine websites (95.7%, [94,97]) were accessible. Twenty-six facilities (2.9%,[1.9,4.2]) had a chronic pain program and of these 22 (84.6%, [64.3,95.0]) specified services offered. Common services included physical therapy (6, 27.3%), massage (12, 54.6%), and acupuncture (10, 45.5%). Of the remaining sites, 630 (69.3%, [66.2,72.3]) specified services offered, including yoga (122, 19.4%) and exercise (199, 31.6%).Conclusion: Our study demonstrated that despite most facilities offering adjunctive services, few had chronic pain programs. This suggests that there is a possible need for better updating of facility websites or possibly an area for improvement in residential substance use treatment settings.

Factors Associated With the Presence of Co-occurring Pain and Substance Use Disorder Programs in Substance Use Treatment Facilities.

OBJECTIVES: The rise in deaths related to substance use has caused a push toward linking patients to pharmacological maintenance treatment and, when appropriate, to residential substance use treatment facilities. One of the underlying issues in a subset of patients with substance use disorder (SUD) is chronic pain. We evaluated the prevalence and characteristics of those facilities that offer treatment programs tailored for patients with co-occurring pain and SUD. METHODS: This study was a retrospective review of data collected by the National Survey of Substance Abuse Treatment Services in 2019. The National Survey of Substance Abuse Treatment Services is sent annually to all substance use treatment facilities and collects information on their characteristics and services. We calculated prevalence of chronic pain programs, reported characteristics, and did a binomial logistic regression to determine predictors of a facility offering such a program. RESULTS: Of 15,945 respondents, 2990 (18.8%) of facilities offered a tailored program for patients with co-occurring pain and SUDs. Characteristics that were best predictors included the following: facility has a tailored program for veterans ( P < 0.001), serves only clients with opioid use disorder ( P = 0.03), and provides maintenance services with methadone or buprenorphine for treating opioid use disorder ( P = 0.009). CONCLUSION: As of 2019, only a small percentage of substance use treatment facilities reported having a program that treats patients with co-occurring pain and SUD. Given the known high prevalence of co-occurring pain and SUD, further understanding of the role of these programs and barriers to implementation may enhance acceptance in treatment programs.