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Aleksi Hamina,1,* Ingvild Odsbu,2,* Petter Christian Borchgrevink,3,4 Li-Chia Chen,5 Thomas Clausen,1 Ketil Arne Espnes,6,7 Kine Gjesdal,8,9 Marte Handal,1,10 Sirpa Hartikainen,11 Vidar Hjellvik,10 Marianne Therese Smogeli Holter,12 Trond Høibø,13 Geana Paula Kurita,14– 16 Harald Christian Langaas,7 Torgeir Gilje Lid,8,9 Torunn Hatlen Nøst,3,17 Per Sjøgren,15 Svetlana Skurtveit1,2 On behalf of the POINT study group1Norwegian Centre for Addiction Research (SERAF), Institute of Clinical Medicine, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway; 2Department of Mental Disorders, Division of Mental and Physical Health, the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Oslo, Norway; 3Department of Pain and Complex Disorders, St. Olavs Hospital, Trondheim University Hospital, Trondheim, Norway; 4Institute of Circulation and Medical Imaging, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway; 5Division of Pharmacy and Optometry, School of Health Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK; 6Department of Clinical Pharmacology, St. Olavs Hospital, Trondheim University Hospital, Trondheim, Norway; 7Regional Medicines Information and Pharmacovigilance Centre (RELIS), Department of Clinical Pharmacology, St. Olavs Hospital, Trondheim University Hospital, Trondheim, Norway; 8Faculty of Health Sciences, University of Stavanger, Stavanger, Norway; 9Center for Alcohol and Drug Research (KORFOR), Stavanger University Hospital, Stavanger, Norway; 10Department of Chronic Diseases, Division of Mental and Physical Health, the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, Oslo, Norway; 11School of Pharmacy, University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio, Finland; 12Department of Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Oslo, Oslo, Norway; 13Research Unit for General Practice, NORCE Norwegian Research Centre, Bergen, Norway; 14Department of Clinical Medicine, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark; 15Department of Oncology, R

Aim: The POINT project aims to provide evidence to optimise chronic pain management, prevent adverse consequences of opioids, and improve chronic pain patients’ pain relief, functional capacity, and quality of life. We describe the outline of the project and its work packages. More specifically, we describe a cohort of persons with chronic pain and a cohort of long-term opioid users identified from a national registry linkage. Data Sources: The project utilises data from nationwide healthcare and population registers in Norway. Using the Norwegian Prescription Database, we identified a cohort of persons who have been dispensed drugs reimbursed for chronic pain and a cohort of persons who used opioids long term from 2010 to 2019. Data from the Norwegian Registry for Primary Health Care and the Norwegian Patient Registry (2008– 2019), Cancer Registry (1990– 2018) Cause of Death Registry (2010– 2019) and demographic and socioeconomic registers from Statistics Norway (2010– 2019) were linked to the cohorts. Study Population: There were 568,869 participants with chronic pain. Sixty-three percent of the cohort was women, and the mean age was 57.1 years. There were 336,712 long-term opioid users (58.6% women; 60.9 years). In chronic pain and long-term opioid user cohorts, the most frequent musculoskeletal diagnosis was back pain diagnosed in primary care (27.6% and 30.7%). Psychiatric diagnoses were also common. Main Variables: Upcoming studies will utilise psychiatric and somatic diagnoses from the patient registers, drug use from the prescription register, causes of death, demographics, and socioeconomic status (eg, education, income, workability, immigrant status) as exposures or outcomes. Conclusion and Future Plans: The two cohorts have numerous pain-related diagnoses, especially in the musculoskeletal system, and noticeably frequent somatic and psychiatric morbidity. The POINT project also includes later work packages that explore prescriber and patient perspectiv