CAM therapies among primary care patients using opioid therapy for chronic pain

Table 1 A comparison of CAM therapy users and non user (The sample consists of 908 subjects taking chronic opioids)

	CAM user past 12 months	No CAM	Total
	n = 404	n = 504	n = 908
Age-Mean	46.6**	50.0**	48.5
Gender, Female	78.6**	61.8**	69.3
Race-White or Caucasian (see footnote 1)	80.9	71.2	75.5
Black or African American	18.4	26.8	23.1
Native American	0.5	1.0	0.8
Hispanic	0.3	1.0	0.7
Education, Mean years (see footnote 2)	13.6**	12.7**	13.1
Education, 12 years or less, %	46.0	62.1	54.9
>12 and <16 years, %	29.2	23.4	26.0
16 or more years, %	24.8	14.5	19.1
Employment-Fulltime or part time	49.6*	35.7*	42.0
Student	1.0	1.0	1.0
Disability	32.3**	45.6**	39.7
Unemployed, looking for work	11.9	10.3	11.0
Marital Status-Married	44.2	41.9	42.9
Widowed	3.5	7.1	5.5
Separated or Divorced	32.0	31.4	31.6
Never Married	20.4	19.6	20.0
Opioids Utilization-Daily	86.6	89.3	88.1
10–29 days per month	13.4	10.7	11.9
Mean dose of Opioid's per day (footnote 3)	94.1 mg	90.4 mg	92 mg
Opioid addiction (DSM-IV 30 day criteria)	3.6%	3.2%	3.4%
Positive Toxicology test for illicit drugs	21.4%	24.1%	22.1%
Pain severity average daily pain (1–10 scale)	4.83	4.77	4.8
Monthly Employment Income, Mean	$845**	$550**	$681
Total Monthly Income, Mean	$1636**	$1322**	$1461
RAND SF-36 Physical Composite Score	33.5	32.7	33.1
RAND SF-36 Mental Composite Score	46.5*	49.7*	48.3
Primary Pain Site,
Lower back	34.9*	41.3*	38.4
Headache	12.9**	7.5**	9.9
Multiple sites	10.6**	5.9**	8.0
Knee	5.9	6.9	6.5
Neck/upper back	9.2**	5.0**	6.8
Leg	5.0	6.9	6.1
Foot and ankle	3.5*	7.1*	5.5
Shoulder	4.7	4.6	4.6
Hip	4.7	4.4	4.5
Abdominal	3.5	5.2	4.4

*p < .05, **p < .01
1. Using Chi square analysis Caucasians were more likely to use CAM therapy than African Americans. p < 0.01.
2. Using Chi square analysis subjects who utilized CAM therapy were more likely to have attended college than non CAM users. p < 0.01.
3. Opioids utilized by the chronic pain patients in the sampe (i.e. oxycodone, hydrocodone, methadone, fentanyl, meperidine, codeine) were converted to morphine equivalent doses using standard equivalency tables.

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