{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2025,12,16]],"date-time":"2025-12-16T12:36:14Z","timestamp":1765888574429,"version":"3.40.5"},"reference-count":46,"publisher":"Public Library of Science (PLoS)","issue":"3","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2021,3,18]],"date-time":"2021-03-18T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1616025600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100003579","name":"University of Toronto","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","award":["Connaught New Researcher Award"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["Connaught New Researcher Award"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100003579","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"crossref"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["www.plosone.org"],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["PLoS ONE"],"abstract":"<jats:sec id=\"sec001\">\n<jats:title>Background<\/jats:title>\n<jats:p>Educational activities for physicians sponsored by opioid manufacturers are implicated in the over- and mis-prescribing of opioids. However, the implications of promotion to nurses are poorly understood. Nurses play a key role in assessing pain, addressing the determinants of pain, and administering opioid medications. We sought to understand the nature and content of pain-related educational events sponsored by opioid manufacturers and to compare events targeting physicians and nurses.<\/jats:p>\n<\/jats:sec>\n<jats:sec id=\"sec002\">\n<jats:title>Methods<\/jats:title>\n<jats:p>We conducted a cross sectional, descriptive analysis of pharmaceutical company reports detailing 116,845 sponsored educational events attended by health professionals from 2011 to 2015 in Australia. We included events that were sponsored by manufacturers of prescription opioid analgesics and were pain related. We compared event characteristics across three attendee groups: (a) physicians only; (b) at least one nurse in attendance; and (c) nurses only. We coded the unstructured data using iteratively generated keywords for variables related to location, format, and content focus.<\/jats:p>\n<\/jats:sec>\n<jats:sec id=\"sec003\">\n<jats:title>Results<\/jats:title>\n<jats:p>We identified 3,411 pain-related events sponsored by 3 companies: bioCSL\/CSL (n = 15), Janssen (n = 134); and Mundipharma (n = 3,262). Pain-related events were most often multidisciplinary, including at least one nurse (1,964\/3,411; 58%); 38% (1,281\/3,411) included physicians only, and 5% (166\/3,411) nurses only. The majority of events were held in clinical settings (61%) and 43% took the form of a journal club. Chronic pain was the most common event topic (26%) followed by cancer pain and palliative care (18%), and then generic or unspecified references to pain (15%); nearly a third (32%) of event descriptions contained insufficient information to determine the content focus. Nurse-only events were less frequently held in clinical settings (32%; p &lt; .001) and more frequently were product launches (17%; p &lt; .001) and a significantly larger proportion focused on cancer or palliative care (33%; p &lt; .001), generic pain topics (27%; p &lt; .001), and geriatrics (25%; p &lt; .001) than physician-only or multidisciplinary events.<\/jats:p>\n<\/jats:sec>\n<jats:sec id=\"sec004\">\n<jats:title>Discussion<\/jats:title>\n<jats:p>Opioid promotion via sponsored educational events extends beyond physicians to multidisciplinary teams and specifically, nurses. Despite lack of evidence that opioids improve outcomes for long-term chronic non-cancer pain, hundreds of sponsored educational events focused on chronic pain. Regulators should consider the validity of distinguishing between pharmaceutical companies\u2019 \u201cpromotional\u201d and \u201cnon-promotional\u201d activities.<\/jats:p>\n<\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pone.0248238","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,3,18]],"date-time":"2021-03-18T16:32:36Z","timestamp":1616085156000},"page":"e0248238","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.corrections_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":5,"title":["A comparison of educational events for physicians and nurses in Australia sponsored by opioid manufacturers"],"prefix":"10.1371","volume":"16","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-7640-8614","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Quinn","family":"Grundy","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-1299-5132","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Sasha","family":"Mazzarello","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Sarah","family":"Brennenstuhl","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]},{"given":"Emily A.","family":"Karanges","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"role":"author","vocabulary":"crossref"}]}],"member":"340","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,3,18]]},"reference":[{"issue":"10028","key":"pone.0248238.ref001","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1644","DOI":"10.1016\/S0140-6736(16)00161-6","article-title":"Use of and barriers to access to opioid analgesics: a worldwide, regional, and national study","volume":"387","author":"S Berterame","year":"2016","journal-title":"The Lancet"},{"issue":"2","key":"pone.0248238.ref002","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"e180217","DOI":"10.1001\/jamanetworkopen.2018.0217","article-title":"The burden of opioid-related mortality in the United States","volume":"1","author":"T Gomes","year":"2018","journal-title":"JAMA Netw Open"},{"key":"pone.0248238.ref003","first-page":"2019","article-title":"Opioid crisis goes global as death surge in Australia.","volume":"5","author":"K. 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