Grant: Canadian Research Initiative in Substance Misuse

Prescription monitoring programs (PMPs) are an important strategy to combat prescription drug abuse; however, there is a need to evaluate the outcomes of these programs. This year the National Advisory Council on Prescription Drug Misuse developed a strategy entitled First Do No Harm: Responding to Canada's Prescription Drug Crisis, which recommended the establishment of "an ongoing formal program of research on the effectiveness of PMPs, core components, and impact including unintended consequences". This proposal is aimed at directly fulfilling this recommendation. In this application, the intervention to be evaluated is prescription monitoring to prevent and reduce the non-medical use of pharmaceutical drugs. The service providers and knowledge users include those designing and administering prescription monitoring programs. The goal of this project is to build teams of academic researchers and PMP service providers across Canada to establish an ongoing formal program of research to 1) evaluate the effectiveness of PMPs, 2) determine the core components of PMPs that contribute to effectiveness, and 3) identify the unintended consequences of PMPs.