Balancing Pain Relief and Addiction Risk: Outcomes Research and Policy in Pain Pharmacotherapy

Pain pharmacotherapy remains a central part of care across acute, chronic, cancer-related, and palliative settings. At the same time, the use of analgesic medicines raises major clinical and public health questions around safety, prescribing quality, misuse, dependence, access, affordability, and long-term outcomes. This Research Topic aims to examine how pain medicines perform in real-life conditions after market approval, with a focus on the balance between effective pain relief and the reduction of treatment-related harms.We welcome submissions that evaluate the real-world effectiveness, safety, utilization, and policy implications of medicines used in pain management. Of particular interest are studies addressing opioid and non-opioid pharmacotherapy, prescribing practices, adherence, dose optimization, treatment patterns, patient-reported outcomes, quality of life, and the management of pain in vulnerable or underrepresented populations. We also encourage work on health system and policy approaches that support appropriate prescribing, improve access to essential pain medicines, reduce inequalities in care, and address the risks of misuse, dependence, overdose, and other adverse outcomes.This Research Topic is especially interested in outcomes research that informs clinical decision-making and healthcare delivery, including pharmacoepidemiologic studies, comparative effectiveness research, safety studies in routine care, cost-effectiveness and cost-utility analyses, meta-analyses, and policy evaluations. Submissions may explore pain pharmacotherapy in different care settings and regions, including low- and middle-income countries, where challenges related to access, regulation, and responsible use may differ substantially. By bringing together evidence from patients, providers, and health systems, this collection seeks to support safer, more effective, and more equitable use of pain medicines in practice. While real-world drug safety analyses are welcome, isolated retrospective data-mining studies using databases such as FAERS are not encouraged.This Research Topic welcomes manuscripts on, but not limited to:• real-world effectiveness and safety of approved pain medicines• opioid stewardship and prescribing policies• comparative outcomes of opioid and non-opioid analgesics• treatment adherence, persistence, switching, and discontinuation• patient-reported outcomes and health-related quality of life in pain care• pain pharmacotherapy in older adults, children, patients with multimorbidity, and other special populations• utilization patterns, inappropriate prescribing, and medicine prioritization• dependence, misuse, overdose risk, and harm-reduction strategies in routine care• cost-effectiveness and cost-utility analyses of pain treatments and prescribing strategies• inequalities in access to pain medicines across populations and health systems• pain medicine policies in low- and middle-income countries• database studies, pharmacovigilance, and post-marketing safety evaluations of approved pain medicines (isolated retrospective data-mining studies, e.g. using FAERS alone, are outside scope) Topic editors: Laurentiu Simion, Vladimir Poroch, Kangho Suh Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/80348/balancing-pain-relief-and-addiction-risk-outcomes-research-and-policy-in-pain-pharmacotherapy