Prevalence of Prescription Pain Medication Use Among Adults: United States, 2015-2018.

Prescription pain medications are used to treat pain due to injury, surgery, and health conditions, such as arthritis and cancer. While opioids may be prescribed together with nonopioid pain medications, nonpharmacologic and nonopioid-containing pharmacologic therapies are preferred for management of chronic pain, where appropriate (1). This report shows the percentage of U.S. adults who, in the past 30 days, used one or more prescription pain medications, used prescription opioid medications, or used nonopioid prescription pain medications (without prescription opioids) in 2015-2018.