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Risks of such indiscriminate anything-but-opioid prescribing might include undertreated pain and the patient resorting to illicit opioids, addiction to the alternatives, and death from side effects, dose escalation or polypharmacy due to unresolved pain, or overdose.

In this group, there was a 9.5 percent increase in the prevalence of “polypharmacy,” which the study defined as taking three or more different classes of psychiatric medications, including antidepressants, mood-stabilizing anticonvulsants, sedatives and drugs for A.D.H.D. and anxiety drugs.

At the same time, some research using nationally weighted samples have revealed the increasing prevalence of polypharmacy among young people.

Further, polypharmacy puts the individual at greater risk for drug interactions and adverse health outcomes, she said.

She also found that rates of polypharmacy, or when an individual takes five or more drugs at the same time, have risen to alarming levels.