A patient has been on opioids for 3 months to control pain caused by injuries from a motor vehicle crash. The patient asks about the risk of withdrawal symptoms when the drugs are no longer needed. How should the nurse respond to the patient?
a. "Ask your doctor for a sedative to get you through the worst of the withdrawal symptoms."
b. "As long as you taper the drug dose down slowly, you should not experience withdrawal symptoms."
c. "You would have to be on these drugs much longer than 3 months to have problems with withdrawal."
d. "You were using the drugs for legitimate pain, so you will not have to go through withdrawal when you stop them."
ANS: B
After 3 months of use, some withdrawal symptoms are likely; these can be minimized or eliminated by slowly tapering the dose. A. Sedatives are not usually necessary and may be addictive. C. The nurse has no way of knowing the patient's potential response to withdrawing from the medication. D. The reason for the medication is not important.
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