Mark Daniel SullivanUniversity of Washington Seattle | UW · Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Mark Daniel Sullivan
MD PhD
About
311
Publications
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Introduction
Dr. Mark Sullivan received his M.D. and his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Vanderbilt University. He is a Professor of Psychiatry and Adjunct Professor of Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine and Adjunct Professor of Bioethics and Humanities at the University of Washington. He has served as attending physician in the UW Center for Pain Relief for over 30 years, where he is Co-Director of Behavioral Health Services. He has published over 275 peer-reviewed articles, many on the interaction of physical health and mental health in patients with chronic illness.
Additional affiliations
January 2002 - present
Publications
Publications (311)
Objective
Substance use among individuals receiving prescription opioids for pain may be associated with poorer functioning. The purpose was to examine whether use of substances (i.e., alcohol, marijuana, or tobacco) among individuals prescribed opioids for pain management was associated with pain, psychiatric disorders, and opioid misuse.
Methods...
To fully understand the opioid epidemic, it is necessary to elucidate the role of depression in mutually reinforcing relationships with pain and prescription opioid use. By bringing together contributions from neuroscience, pain psychiatry, clinical epidemiology, pharmacoepidemiology, clinical trials, and research on social determinants of health,...
The COTAT (Collaborative Opioid Taper After Trauma) Study was a randomized trial of an opioid taper support program using a physician assistant (PA) to provide pain and opioid treatment guidance to primary care providers assuming care for adult patients with moderate to severe trauma discharged from a Level I trauma center on opioid therapy. Patien...
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is common in patients with chronic pain, adversely affects chronic pain outcomes, and is associated with opioid use and adverse opioid outcomes. Social support is a robust predictor of PTSD incidence and course as well as chronic pain outcome. We determined whether the association between PTSD and persistent op...
Objective
Marijuana use is increasingly common among patients with chronic non-cancer pain (CNCP) and long-term opioid therapy (LTOT). We determined if lifetime recreational and medical marijuana use were associated with more frequent and higher dose prescription opioid use.
Design
Cross-sectional
Subjects
Eligible patients (n=1,037), who had a n...
Objective
Engagement in evidence-based psychological interventions for pain management is low. Identifying characteristics associated with interest in interventions can inform approaches to increase uptake and engagement. The purpose of this study was to examine factors associated with interest in psychological interventions among persons with non-...
Background
A valid opioid use disorder (OUD) identification algorithm for use in administrative medical record data would enhance investigators’ ability to study consequences of OUD, OUD treatment seeking and treatment outcomes.
Main body
Existing studies indicate ICD-9 and ICD-10 codes for opioid abuse and dependence do not accurately measure OUD...
The new discipline of palliative care helped to establish the right to pain relief at the end of life and the necessity of using opioids to achieve that goal. Professional pain organizations followed the United Nations' model for universal human rights in their declaration of a universal right to pain management. Both palliative care and pain medic...
Background
Decreasing exposure to prescription opioids is critical to lowering risk of opioid misuse, overdose and opioid use disorder. This study reports a secondary analysis of a randomized controlled trial implementing an opioid taper support program directed to primary care providers (PCPs) of patients discharged from a level I trauma center to...
Opioid prescribing and the pain reduction regime
Recently, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updated their Clinical Practice Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Pain.¹ Although the guidelines focus on prescribing opioids for pain, the initial recommendations strongly encourage providers to prescribe nonpharmacologic and nonopio...
The COTAT (Collaborative Opioid Taper After Trauma) Study was a randomized trial of an opioid taper support program using a physician assistant (PA) to provide pain and opioid treatment guidance to primary care providers assuming care for adult patients with moderate to severe trauma discharged from a Level I trauma center on opioid therapy. Patien...
The Right to Pain Relief and Other Deep Roots of the Opioid Epidemic aims to reach beneath popular narratives that blame profit-seeking pharmaceutical companies and healthcare practitioners for opioid overprescribing and the resulting epidemic of opioid addiction, overdose, and death. This book argues that the opioid epidemic arises from serious mi...
The Right to Pain Relief and Other Deep Roots of the Opioid Epidemic aims to reach beneath popular narratives that blame profit-seeking pharmaceutical companies and healthcare practitioners for opioid overprescribing and the resulting epidemic of opioid addiction, overdose, and death. This book argues that the opioid epidemic arises from serious mi...
The Right to Pain Relief and Other Deep Roots of the Opioid Epidemic aims to reach beneath popular narratives that blame profit-seeking pharmaceutical companies and healthcare practitioners for opioid overprescribing and the resulting epidemic of opioid addiction, overdose, and death. This book argues that the opioid epidemic arises from serious mi...
The Right to Pain Relief and Other Deep Roots of the Opioid Epidemic aims to reach beneath popular narratives that blame profit-seeking pharmaceutical companies and healthcare practitioners for opioid overprescribing and the resulting epidemic of opioid addiction, overdose, and death. This book argues that the opioid epidemic arises from serious mi...
The Right to Pain Relief and Other Deep Roots of the Opioid Epidemic aims to reach beneath popular narratives that blame profit-seeking pharmaceutical companies and healthcare practitioners for opioid overprescribing and the resulting epidemic of opioid addiction, overdose, and death. This book argues that the opioid epidemic arises from serious mi...
The Right to Pain Relief and Other Deep Roots of the Opioid Epidemic aims to reach beneath popular narratives that blame profit-seeking pharmaceutical companies and healthcare practitioners for opioid overprescribing and the resulting epidemic of opioid addiction, overdose, and death. This book argues that the opioid epidemic arises from serious mi...
The Right to Pain Relief and Other Deep Roots of the Opioid Epidemic aims to reach beneath popular narratives that blame profit-seeking pharmaceutical companies and healthcare practitioners for opioid overprescribing and the resulting epidemic of opioid addiction, overdose, and death. This book argues that the opioid epidemic arises from serious mi...
The Right to Pain Relief and Other Deep Roots of the Opioid Epidemic aims to reach beneath popular narratives that blame profit-seeking pharmaceutical companies and healthcare practitioners for opioid overprescribing and the resulting epidemic of opioid addiction, overdose, and death. This book argues that the opioid epidemic arises from serious mi...
The Right to Pain Relief and Other Deep Roots of the Opioid Epidemic aims to reach beneath popular narratives that blame profit-seeking pharmaceutical companies and healthcare practitioners for opioid overprescribing and the resulting epidemic of opioid addiction, overdose, and death. This book argues that the opioid epidemic arises from serious mi...
The Right to Pain Relief and Other Deep Roots of the Opioid Epidemic aims to reach beneath popular narratives that blame profit-seeking pharmaceutical companies and healthcare practitioners for opioid overprescribing and the resulting epidemic of opioid addiction, overdose, and death. This book argues that the opioid epidemic arises from serious mi...
The Right to Pain Relief and Other Deep Roots of the Opioid Epidemic aims to reach beneath popular narratives that blame profit-seeking pharmaceutical companies and healthcare practitioners for opioid overprescribing and the resulting epidemic of opioid addiction, overdose, and death. This book argues that the opioid epidemic arises from serious mi...
Background
The COVID-19 pandemic has been associated with increased opioid prescribing. It is not known if perceived COVID-19 related stress is associated with increased odds of long-term opioid use.Objective
To determine if greater COVID-19-related stress and worsening pain attributed to the pandemic was associated with LTOT over a 6-month observa...
Background
Concurrent therapeutic prescribing of prescription stimulants with opioid analgesics is increasing in the United States. Stimulant medication use is associated with increased risk for long-term opioid therapy (LTOT), and LTOT is associated with increased risk for opioid use disorder (OUD).
Aims
To determine if stimulant prescriptions am...
The biopsychosocial model (BPS) of chronic pain aspires to be comprehensive, incorporating psychological and social factors omitted from biomedical models. Although psychosocial factors are viewed as highly influential in understanding behavioral and psychological responses to pain, these factors are usually viewed as modifiers of biological causes...
It was not until the twentieth century that pain was considered a disease. Before that it was managed medically as a symptom. The motivations for declaring chronic pain a disease, whether of the body or of the brain, include increasing its legitimacy as clinical problem and research focus worthy of attention from healthcare and research organizatio...
Background
Opioid tapering has been identified as an effective strategy to prevent the dangers associated with long-term opioid therapy for patients with chronic pain. However, many patients are resistant to tapering, and conversations about tapering can be challenging for healthcare providers. Pharmacists can play a role in supporting both provide...
Synopsis Patients with non-cancer pain reported increased pain and pain interference during the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic. We determined if pain, prescription opioid use, and comorbidities were associated with perceived COVID-19-related stress as the pandemic peaked. Analysis of survey data revealed that depression/anxiety, pain severit...
Opinion statement
Preventing depression in cancer patients on long-term opioid therapy should begin with depression screening before opioid initiation and repeated screening during treatment. In weighing the high morbidity of depression and opioid use disorder in patients with chronic cancer pain against a dearth of evidence-based therapies studied...
Long-term opioid therapy (LTOT) is associated with increased risk for depression. It is not known if the frequency of opioid use during LTOT is associated with new onset depression. We used Optum's de-identified Integrated Claims-Clinical dataset (2010-2018) to create a cohort of 5,146 patients, 18 - 80 years of age with an encounter or claims in t...
Background
Opioid doses declined after the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) opioid prescribing guideline was published. However, it is unknown if dose declines occurred in patients with ≥ 3 years of continuous opioid use.
Methods
Optum® de-identified integrated Electronic Health Record and claims data were used to create an adult sample (n = 400)...
Objectives:
The claim of a right to pain relief was made in recent decades by pain professionals, courts, and patient advocacy groups and likely contributed to increased opioid prescribing, overdose deaths, and addictions, but the origins and nature of this right have not been investigated.
Methods:
Relevant clinical, ethical, and legal literatu...
Background
Depression occurs in 40% of patients with prescription opioid dependence (POD). Existing studies of the association between depression and buprenorphine (BUP) treatment for POD are inconsistent and often include patients with comorbid substance use disorders (SUD). We estimated the association between depression and BUP use in patients w...
The US opioid epidemic challenges us to rethink our understanding of the function of opioids and the nature of chronic pain. We have neatly separated opioid use and abuse as well as physical and social pain in ways that may not be consistent with the most recent neuroscientific and epidemiological research. Physical injury and social rejection acti...
The multitude of treatments available for tens of millions of US adults with moderate/severe chronic pain have limited efficacy. Long-term opioid therapy (LTOT) is a widely available option for controlling pain among patients with chronic pain refractory to other treatments. The recent recognition of LTOT inefficacy and complications has led to mor...
Long-term opioid therapy has the potential for serious adverse outcomes and is often used in a vulnerable population. Because adverse effects or failure to maintain benefits is common with long-term use, opioid taper or discontinuation may be indicated in certain patients. Concerns about the adverse individual and population effects of opioids have...
Background:
Results from studies using medical record data indicate chronic (>90 days) opioid analgesic use (OAU) is associated with new depressive episodes (NDE), worsening depression and risk for depression recurrence. This body of evidence is based on retrospective cohort studies and medical record data. Limitations of existing research are ove...
Background:
There are significant medical risks of long-term opioid therapy (LTOT) for chronic pain. Consequently, there is a need to identify effective interventions for the reduction of high-dose full-agonist opioid medication use.
Methods:
The current study details a retrospective review of 240 patients with chronic pain and LTOT presenting f...
Objective:
To report the theoretical basis and design of a novel digital Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) intervention for people with chronic pain, the Pain Tracker Self Manager (PTSM), which had promising efficacy in a recent pilot trial.
Methods:
Content development by a multidisciplinary panel of experts in psychiatry, clinical psycho...
Objectives
To determine the prevalence and impact of common co‐occurring symptoms among community‐dwelling older adults in the United States.
Design
The National Health and Aging Trends Study is a nationally representative, prospective study with annual data collection between 2011 and 2017.
Setting
Community‐based, in‐person interviews (survey r...
Background:
Prescription opioid use and opioid related deaths continue to increase nationwide. Several states have adopted legislation allowing for recreational use of cannabis. Little is known about how recreational cannabis laws impact compliance in chronic pain patients who have been prescribed opioid therapy. The goals of this study were to (1...
The decision to refer and approve or deny physical and behavioral therapies in the present health care climate appears to be predominantly based on whether or not a meaningful difference in pain intensity is achieved, rather than the ability for patients to successfully engage in valued activities. A stronger scientific practice in exploring the st...
Opioid misuse is regularly associated with disrupted functioning in those with chronic pain. Less work has examined whether alcohol misuse may also interfere with functioning. This study examined frequency of opioid and alcohol misuse in 131 individuals (61.1% female) prescribed opioids for the treatment of chronic pain. Participants completed an a...
Objectives:
Treatment guidelines discourage long-term opioid treatment for patients with chronic pain and major depression, but this treatment occurs commonly, producing higher daily doses, longer duration, and more adverse events.
Methods:
Review of prospective cohort, retrospective cohort, and other observational studies of the relation betwee...
Background
Depression contributes to persistent opioid analgesic use (OAU). Treating depression may increase opioid cessation.
Aims
To determine if adherence to antidepressant medications (ADMs) v . non-adherence was associated with opioid cessation in patients with a new depression episode after >90 days of OAU.
Method
Patients with non-cancer,...
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) commonly accompanies complex chronic pain, yet PTSD is often overlooked in chronic pain management. Using the 4-item Primary Care (PC)-PTSD screening tool, we evaluated the relationship between the number and type of PC-PTSD symptoms endorsed and a set of patient-reported outcomes, including: pain intensity and...
An urgent need exists to better understand the transition from short-term opioid use to unintended prolonged opioid use (UPOU). The purpose of this work is to propose a conceptual framework for understanding UPOU that posits the influence of 3 principal domains that include the characteristics of (1) individual patients, (2) the practice environmen...
Background and objectives:
Evidence-based pharmacological and behavioral interventions are often underutilized or inaccessible to persons with multiple sclerosis (MS) who have chronic pain and/or depression. Collaborative care is an evidence-based patient-centered, integrated, system-level approach to improving the quality and outcomes of depressi...
Women have a higher prevalence of chronic noncancer pain conditions and report more severe pain, yet, it is not known if the association between long-term opioid analgesic use (OAU) and risk of a new depression episode (NDE) differs according to gender. We analyzed patient data from the Veterans Health Administration (VHA; 2000–2012; n = 70,997) an...
Objectives
Health-related quality of life (HRQOL) is a key indicator of health. However, HRQOL data from representative populations in South Asia are lacking. This study aims to describe HRQOL overall, by age, gender and socioeconomic status, and examine the associations between selected chronic conditions and HRQOL in adults from three urban citie...
Objective:
These analyses examined opioid initiation and chronic use among Iraq (OIF) and Afghanistan (OEF/OND) veterans with a new diagnosis of traumatic brain injury (TBI) in the Veterans Health Administration (VHA).
Methods:
Data were obtained from national VHA data repositories. Analyses included OEF/OIF/OND veterans with a new TBI diagnosis...
Before the discovery of the endogenous opioid system in the 1970s, opioids were understood only through the lens of opioid drug effects. Opium produced sleep, pain relief and addiction. Once a variety of opioids had been extracted from opium, and still others synthesized chemically, it became clear that there must be endogenous receptors to explain...
Background:
Relationships between early kidney disease, neurocognitive function, and brain anatomy are poorly defined in African Americans with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM).
Study design:
Cross-sectional associations were assessed between cerebral anatomy and cognitive performance with estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR) and urine alb...
To develop and test a web-based patient empowerment platform, PainTracker Self-Manager (PTSM), that can support integrated multimodal care in a variety of specialty and primary care settings. The investigators will adapt PainTracker, a web-based outcome and treatment tracking tool already deployed in multiple University of Washington clinics to cre...
There is a great deal of concern about opioid use in Veterans, particularly those that served in Afghanistan (OEF) and Iraq (OIF and OND). The current study provides a detailed pharmacoepidemiologic analysis of opioid use among OEF/OIF/OND Veterans from FY09 to FY12. Data from three data repositories from the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) we...
Objectives:
To describe trends in suicides with opioid poisoning noted as a contributing cause of death.
Methods:
Using National Vital Statistics data (1999-2014), we calculated age-adjusted rates of suicide with opioid poisoning (International Classification of Diseases, Tenth Revision codes T40.0-T40.4) per 100 000 population per year and annu...
In the 21st century, the primary challenge for health care is chronic illness. To meet this challenge, we need to think anew about the role of the patient in health and health care. There have been widespread calls for patient-centered care, but this model of care does not question deeply enough the goals of health care, the nature of the clinical...
Aims/hypothesis:
The Memory in Diabetes (MIND) substudy of the Action to Control Cardiovascular Risk in Diabetes (ACCORD) study, a double 2x2 factorial parallel-group randomised clinical trial, tested whether intensive compared with standard management of hyperglycaemia, BP or lipid levels reduced cognitive decline and brain atrophy in 2977 people...
Methods:
VA patients were classified into two groups, those who did not receive an opioid and developed depression (non-OAU+NDE, n=4314) and those that had >90 days OAU and developed NDE (OAU+NDE, n=444). OAU+NDE patients were compared to non-OAU+NDE in terms of depression severity (PHQ-9 scores), incidence of PTSD, other anxiety disorders and sub...
Health care in the USA faces a double challenge, the crisis of chronic pain and the crisis of opioid misuse and overdose. Patients have been prescribed opioids at high doses with unclear indications for long periods of time, putting them at high risk for morbidity and mortality. A significant proportion of these patients have comorbid psychiatric o...
Recent studies suggest that longer durations of opioid use, independent of maximum morphine equivalent dose (MED) achieved, is associated with increased risk of new-onset depression (NOD). Conversely, other studies, not accounting for duration, found that higher MED increased probability of depressive symptoms. To determine whether rate of MED incr...
Perspective:
In a pilot randomized trial comparing a prescription opioid taper support intervention to usual care, lower opioid doses and pain severity ratings were observed at 22 weeks in both groups. The groups did not differ significantly at 22 weeks in opioid dose or pain severity, but the taper support group improved significantly more in pai...
Unlabelled:
The recently proposed Analgesic, Anesthetic, and Addiction Clinical Trial Translations, Innovations, Opportunities, and Networks (ACTTION)-American Pain Society (APS) Pain Taxonomy (AAPT) provides an evidence-based, multidimensional, chronic pain classification system. Psychosocial factors play a crucial role within several dimensions...
Long-term prescription opioid use is associated both with new-onset and recurrence of depression. Whether chronic opioid use interferes with depression management has not been reported, therefore we determined whether patients' longer duration of opioid use and higher opioid dose are associated with new-onset treatment resistant depression (TRD) af...
Purpose:
Longer duration of prescription opioid use is associated with risk of major depression after controlling for daily morphine equivalent dose and pain. It is not known if risk of depression varies as a function of the type of opioid prescribed.
Methods:
A retrospective cohort design was used to model onset of new depression diagnosis amon...
Unlabelled:
By 2007, opioid-related mortality in Washington state (WA) was 50% higher than the national average, with Medicaid patients showing nearly 6 times the mortality of commercially-insured patients. In 2007, the WA Interagency Guideline on Opioid Dosing for Chronic Non-cancer Pain was released, which recommended caution in prescribing >120...
Purpose:
Recent results suggests the risk of a new onset of depression increases with longer duration of opioid analgesic use. It is unclear whether new-onset depression related to opioid analgesic use is a function of the dose prescribed or the duration of use or both.
Methods:
Using a retrospective cohort design, we collected patient data from...
Borrowing treatment principles from acute and end-of-life pain care, particularly a focus on pain intensity, has had harmful consequences for patients with chronic pain. Multimodal therapy, by contrast, aims to reduce pain-related distress, disability, and suffering.
Background: Opioid poisonings have increased as use of prescription opioid medications have increased. To reduce these poisonings, guidelines for chronic opioid use have been implemented. However, if opioid poisonings occur in individuals who do not have high prescribed doses and who are not chronic opioid users, the current guidelines may need rev...
Chronic pain patients often have psychiatric disorders that negatively influence their responses to treatment. Also, many of them have dysfunctional beliefs and coping strategies, even if they do not meet DSM-5 criteria for a psychiatric disorder. Physiatrists should have a low threshold for referring both groups of patients for mental health servi...
Opioid poisonings have increased as use of prescription opioid medications have increased. To reduce these poisonings, guidelines for chronic opioid use have been implemented. However, if opioid poisonings occur in individuals who do not have high prescribed doses and who are not chronic opioid users, the current guidelines may need revision.
To ex...
Heart failure (HF) has a major effect on patients' health status, including their symptom burden, functional status, and health-related quality of life.
To determine the effectiveness of a collaborative care patient-centered disease management (PCDM) intervention to improve the health status of patients with HF.
The Patient-Centered Disease Managem...
Unlabelled:
Chronic pain represents an immense clinical problem. With tens of millions of people in the United States alone suffering from the burden of debilitating chronic pain, there is a moral obligation to reduce this burden by improving the understanding of pain and treatment mechanisms, developing new therapies, optimizing and testing exist...
Veterans have high rates of chronic pain and long-term opioid therapy (LTOT). Understanding predictors of discontinuation from LTOT will clarify the risks for prolonged opioid use and dependence among this population. All veterans with at least 90 days of opioid use within a 180 day period were identified using national Veteran's Health Affairs (VH...
Although opioids are frequently prescribed for chronic non-cancer pain (CNCP) among Veterans Health Administration (VHA) patients, little has been reported on national opioid prescribing patterns in the VHA. Our objective was to better characterize the dosing and duration of opioid therapy for CNCP in the VHA. We analyzed national VHA administrativ...
Current approaches to classification of chronic pain conditions suffer from the absence of a systematically implemented and evidence-based taxonomy. Moreover, existing diagnostic approaches typically fail to incorporate available knowledge regarding the biopsychosocial mechanisms contributing to pain conditions. To address these gaps, the Analgesic...
Importance:
Persons with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) are at increased risk for decline in cognitive function, reduced brain volume, and increased white matter lesions in the brain. Poor control of blood pressure (BP) and lipid levels are risk factors for T2DM-related cognitive decline, but the effect of intensive treatment on brain function an...
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