Vets' painkiller addiction risk studied

CHICAGO -- Morphine and similar powerful painkillers are sometimes prescribed to recent war veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress and physical pain, but the consequences can be tragic, a government study suggests.

These vets are at high risk for drug and alcohol abuse, but they're two times more likely to get prescriptions for addictive painkillers than vets with only physical pain, according to the study.

Iraq and Afghanistan vets with post-traumatic stress disorder who already had substance abuse problems were four times more likely to get these drugs than vets without mental health problems, according to the study.

The research involved all veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars who were diagnosed with noncancer physical pain from October 2005 through December 2010 -- or 141,029 men and women. Half of them also were diagnosed with PTSD or other mental health problems. The results were published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The Department of Veterans Affairs paid for the study, which is based on VA health care data.

In a statement about the study, the VA said its pain management approach has been cited as a model of care, but that "we recognize that more work needs to be done."

Army data provided to The Associated Press last year showed that referrals for opiate abuse among soldiers rose during the decade that ended in 2009, and totaled more than 670 between October 2009 and June 2010.

In the study, 15,676 vets received opiate prescriptions for physical pain. These prescriptions went to almost 18 percent of vets with PTSD and 12 percent of those with other mental health problems, compared with about 7 percent of vets without those problems.

Among those with PTSD, subsequent self-inflicted injuries, including suicides, occurred in 3 percent of vets who got the drugs, versus 2 percent who didn't.