OBJECTIVES : The aim of this study was to investigate pharmacists’ willingness to consider suggesting a non- narcotic NSAID medication instead of an opioid for patients requiring pain relief.

METHODS : A cross-sectional survey research was conducted for the study. A validated survey was distributed to Florida licensed pharmacists at a live University Continuing Pharmacy Education session. Descriptive statistics including frequency distribution were used to summarize the basic features of the data in the study. The chi-square or fisher exact statistics were applied to compare different variables such as age and gender to observe their effects on the professionals’ willingness to switch to non-opioid analgesics. A two tailed statistic with a p-value less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. All data management and analysis were performed using IBM-SPSS Statistics 25.

RESULTS : A total of 229 questionnaires were distributed and 151 were completed and included in the study, for a response rate of 66%. Overall, 84,1% of respondents were willing to suggest NSAID replacement to patients. There was no statistically significant between male and female pharmacists in the willingness to consult their patients (P=0.476) and estimated patient acceptance rate for NSAID replacement (P=0.590). Older pharmacists tended to be more likely to consult their patients about this issue compared with younger pharmacists. However, no statistically significant was found among different age group (P=0.181).

CONCLUSIONS : While opioid addiction occurs from numerous sources, it is our hope that the partial elimination of opioid prescriptions by pharmacist’s consultation could possibly reduce in some modest way the total number of persons exposed to opioids.