title: Utilization of the Arkansas Prescription Monitoring Program to Combat Prescription Drug Abuse.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  The Arkansas Prescription Monitoring Program (AR PMP) was implemented in 2013 to combat prescription drug abuse. All enrollees were invited to participate in a user survey available in February 2014, to identify makeup of users, utilization of the program, and changes made to health care practices after implementation of the program.
  
  
  METHODS
  Of the 3,694 individual enrollees invited to participate, 1,541(41.7%) completed the survey. Data collected were analyzed to identify changes in health care practices by program frequency of use and user profession.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Medical doctors, advanced practice nurses, and pharmacists are the professions who use the program most frequently. Daily AR PMP users are considerably more likely than infrequent users to be prompted to access the program by the involvement of a controlled substance (CS) prescription or by office/facility policy requirements. Increased frequency of use of the AR PMP results in positive impacts on CS prescribing and dispensing practices.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Compelling more users of the AR PMP to be prompted to access the program by the involvement of a CS prescription or by requirements per office/facility policy may increase frequency of use of the program and thereby changes in health care practices to combat prescription drug abuse.
authors.affiliation: College of Pharmacy and Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, 4301 West Markham Street, #781, Little Rock, AR 72205-7199, USA rebecca.rittenhouse@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Rebecca
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Rittenhouse
authors.affiliation: Department of Biostatistics, Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, 4301 West Markham Street, #781, Little Rock, AR 72205-7199, USA FWei@uams.edu.
authors.forename: Feifei
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Wei
authors.affiliation: Pharmacy Services, Arkansas Department of Health, 4815 West Markham Street, Slot 25, Little Rock, AR 72205-3867, USA Denise.Robertson@arkansas.gov.
authors.forename: Denise
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Robertson
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Policy and Management, Fay W. Boozman College of Public Health, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, 4301 West Markham Street, #820, Little Rock, AR 72205-7199, USA RyanKevinW@uams.edu.
authors.forename: Kevin
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ryan
keywords: Arkansas; Prescription monitoring program; health care practice; public health; substance abuse