Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment最新文献

Introduction

Although opioid substitution coverage in France is high and patient care with buprenorphine is mainly managed by general practitioners (GPs), buprenorphine sales have been decreasing since 2011, suggesting that French GPs are prescribing less buprenorphine. Yet this possible change in GP practices has not yet been investigated. This study aimed to examine primary care GPs' opinions about buprenorphine and habits related to prescribing buprenorphine.

Methods

The study team conducted a cross-sectional survey from March 2021 to July 2021 among a sample of GPs in the Sentinelles network, a French epidemiologic surveillance system based on primary care practitioners. The study collected information about substance use disorder (SUD) training, opinions on buprenorphine, and habits related to buprenorphine prescription were collected (initiation and renewal within the past two years).

Findings

Among the 237 participants (34 % response rate), 15.2 % reported having had specific training for SUD management. A majority reported a very positive (16 %) or positive (63.7 %) opinion of buprenorphine. Most participants agreed (61.2 %) or strongly agreed (31.2 %) that buprenorphine was efficacious in the treatment of illicit opioid use disorder. Of the 206 GPs who reported having treated patients with opioid use disorder in the past two years, 47 (22.8 %) had initiated a buprenorphine prescription, whereas 177 (85.9 %) had renewed a buprenorphine prescription. Previous SUD training was associated with initiating buprenorphine (OR 4.66; 95 % CI [2.15–10.08]), while female gender was associated with not initiating buprenorphine prescribing (OR 0.46; 95 % CI [0.22–0.98]).

Conclusion

A sample of French GPs who work in primary care has a positive view of buprenorphine, but the absence of SUD training among this population may be a barrier to their prescribing buprenorphine.

Introduction

Rates of hospitalizations from medical complications of opioid use disorder (OUD) are rising and many of these patients require post–acute care at skilled nursing facilities (SNFs). However, access to medication for OUD (MOUD) at SNFs remains low and patients with OUD have high rates of patient-directed discharge (PDD) and hospital readmissions.

Methods

Opioid Use Disorder Medical Patient Engagement, Enrollment in treatment and Transitional Supports (OUD MEETS) program was a clinical pilot designed to increase initiation of buprenorphine and methadone for hospitalized patients with OUD requiring post–acute care. The program comprises a hospital partnership with two SNFs and two opioid treatment programs (OTPs) to improve recovery supports and access to MOUD for patients discharged to SNF.

Results

Between August 2019 and August 2020, study staff approached 49 hospitalized patients with OUD for participation in OUD MEETS. Twenty-eight of 30 eligible patients enrolled in the program and initiated buprenorphine or methadone. Twenty-seven (96 %) enrolled patients successfully completed hospital treatment. Twenty-three (85 %) patients successfully completed medical treatment at SNF. Thirteen (46 %) enrolled patients had confirmed linkage to OUD treatment post-SNF. One patient left the hospital (4 %) and four patients left SNF (15 %) via PDD.

Conclusion

OUD MEETS demonstrates feasibility of hospital, SNF, and OTP partnership to integrate MOUD treatment into SNFs, with high rates of completion of medical treatment and low rates of PDD. Future research should find sustainable ways to improve access to MOUD at post–acute care facilities, including through regulatory and policy changes.

Introduction

Opioid prevention and treatment programs tailored to young adults involved in the criminal legal system are rare. We examined profiles of polysubstance use among younger and older adults involved in the criminal legal system who use opioids, and explored their experiences and motivations related to substance use. Information gleaned can inform the adaptation of existing programs and the development of novel approaches for young adults in the criminal legal system.

Methods

Using a sequential mixed methods design we 1) quantitatively identified typologies of polysubstance users among adults aged 18–24 (n = 92) and those age 25 and over (n = 27) involved in the criminal legal system who use opioids, using latent class analysis and 2) qualitatively explored differences in personal motivations, cultural influences, and psychosocial contexts of substance use by class.

Results

Our quantitative results supported a three-class typology: the majority of participants were in Class I (73 %, n = 87) and reported using primarily alcohol and marijuana. Participants in Classes II (15 %, n = 18) and III (12 %, n = 14) endorsed distinct and complicated polysubstance use profiles. Further, participants in Classes I and III were significantly younger than those in Class II. Qualitative analysis allowed us to understand associations between patterns of use, motivations, and contexts among young and older adults, comparing across classes.

Conclusions

Our results highlight the importance of attending to the needs of subpopulations based on age and use patterns to adapt and develop targeted treatment and prevention programs for high-risk adults involved in the criminal legal system.

At age 16, I injected morphine for the first time, and then started injecting heroin. By most standards, I was highly functioning, although I eventually became addicted. I was and remain socioeconomically privileged, but my relationship to heroin resulted in behaviors and consequences that I never could have conceived of, and which I sometimes strain to remember occurred. My life now is stable and conventional. Some aspects of my past addiction are unerasable, but the most salient of those are the social and legal consequences of having a criminal record—not any hallmarks of a chronic brain disease or disorder. I do not consider myself “in recovery.” Rather, I am recovered, by standards both my own and derived from clinical nosology. I have been in sustained remission for over a decade. Yet feelings are not facts, as is often said. I still use alcohol, and occasionally (though not recently) I have used other drugs, so there remains the possibility that my brain is indeed “diseased” and I am not objectively recovered, my self-assessment notwithstanding. My aim in writing about my lived experience of drug use, addiction, and recovery is to highlight the heterogeneity of people's experiences and the insight that personal narratives can provide. Debates about the brain disease model of addiction are often confined to academia, with the real-world, unintended consequences of the “disease” label seldom considered. Stigmatization of people with addiction comes from moralizing about drug use but may also originate from well-intended labels. I posit that we should not need labels to care about addicted people and make scientifically informed treatment accessible. Addicted people deserve help because they either need or want it, regardless of labels that presume to describe the etiology or likely trajectory of their problems. I conclude that some labels, even those needed for clinical classification of human behavior, may be pernicious. Clinicians and researchers have an obligation to reflect more deeply on the implications of the disease conceptualization of complex human behaviors such as addiction.

Background

Aging people who inject drugs (PWID) have complex health needs. Health care management could be complicated by persistent substance use, multiple health challenges, and inconsistent access to care. However, we know little about the relationship between chronic multimorbidity and health care engagement in this population. The purpose of this study is to characterize patterns and correlates of chronic disease multimorbidity among PWID.

Methods

We conducted a latent class analysis (LCA) using data from the AIDS Linked to the IntraVenous Experience (ALIVE) Study, a community-based observational cohort, to determine classes of multimorbid chronic diseases. We then conducted regressions to determine factors associated with class membership and the impact of each multimorbid class on health events and utilization.

Results

Of 1387 individuals included, the majority were male (67%) and Black (81%), with a mean age of 53 years. We identified four classes of multimorbidity: Low Multimorbidity (54%), and Low Multimorbidity Including Psychiatric Comorbidity (26%), Multimorbidity (12%), and Multimorbidity Including Psychiatric Comorbidity (7%). Female sex, baseline age, and receipt of disability were factors significantly associated with membership in all three classes compared to the Low Multimorbidity class. Additionally, PWID in these three classes were significantly more likely to utilize emergency room and outpatient health care. Membership in both classes with psychiatric comorbidity was associated with significantly higher adjusted odds of receiving medication for opioid use disorder.

Discussion

Holistic health care systems can best address the needs of aging PWID with integrated care that provides harm reduction, substance use and mental health treatment together, and wrap around services.

Background

As overdoses due to opioids rise, medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD) continue to be underemployed, resulting in limited access to potentially life-saving treatment. Substance use disorders are prevalent in individuals who are incarcerated, and these individuals are at increased risk for death postrelease due to overdose. Few jails and prisons offer MOUD and most limit access. Extended-release buprenorphine (XR-BUP), a novel monthly injectable MOUD formulation, could be uniquely poised to address treatment access in correctional settings.

Methods

This study linked a retrospective cohort design of statewide datasets to evaluate the real-world use of XR-BUP. The study included individuals (N = 54) who received XR-BUP while incarcerated from January 2019 through February 2022. The study was conducted at the Rhode Island Department of Corrections, with the nation's first comprehensive statewide correctional MOUD program.

Results

Fifty-four individuals received a combined total of 162 injections during the study period. The study found no evidence of tampering with the injection site, indicating no attempts by participants to remove, hoard, or divert the medication. Sixty-one percent reported at least one adverse effect after injections were received, with an average of 2.8 side effects. Sixty-one percent of those released on XR-BUP engaged in MOUD after release, 30 % continued with XR-BUP.

Conclusions

XR-BUP is feasible and acceptable in correctional settings. XR-BUP addresses administrative concerns of diversion that obstruct lifesaving MOUD and offers another safe and effective treatment option. Further studies and trials should continue to assess this novel medication's ability to treat opioid addiction in the correctional setting and upon release to the community.

Introduction

Opioid use disorder (OUD) continues to present a major public health problem in the United States. Civil commitment for substance use is one mandatory form of treatment for severe opioid use that has become increasingly available in recent years, but empirical data on this approach are lacking. This study examines clinical outcomes of civil commitment in a sample of adults with severe opioid use.

Methods

Participants were 121 persons with opioid use who were interviewed at the point of entry into civil commitment, then followed for 12 weeks after their release.

Results

Prior to civil commitment, this sample exhibited serious substance use characteristics (including high rates of illicit opioid use, other substance use, and injection drug use), as well as mental health problems (diagnoses of depression and anxiety disorders). During follow-up, approximately 41 % of the sample reported at least one illicit opioid use day. More than 64 % of the sample reported at least one day of medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD) receipt, and participants were significantly less likely to use illicit opioids on days that they received MOUDs. No participants died during the follow-up period.

Conclusions

In this sample of persons with severe opioid use, clinical outcomes of civil commitment included illicit opioid relapse as well as varying levels of MOUD uptake. Civil commitment may be a viable method for short-term prevention of overdose for a subset of this vulnerable patient population.

Introduction

Substance use treatment outcomes are challenging to predict: myriad potentially relevant factors influence outcomes, including age, sex, motivations, and history of victimization.

Methods

The current study seeks to assess these factors in adolescents through an evaluation of the relationship between distinct victimization profiles, sex, and cognitive factors related to substance use treatment outcomes—specifically motivation, self-efficacy, and reasons for quitting—and the relationship between these factors and posttreatment outcomes. We report sex differences in the prevalence of specific types of victimization; females are more likely than males to report poly-victimization alongside higher levels of traumagenic characteristics such as fearing for your life, chronic abuse, abuse by a trusted individual, or negative reactions to disclosure.

Results

Adolescents who endorsed high levels of poly-victimization and high traumagenic characteristics reported a) higher motivation for treatment, b) more reasons for quitting substance use, c) lower self-efficacy, and d) fewer adjusted days abstinent posttreatment relative to their peers. We report several sex differences: emergent poly-victimization profiles are different for males and females, class membership has a differential proportion, and, last, associations between class membership and pre-treatment cognitive motivations and posttreatment outcomes vary by sex.

Conclusion

Clinicians working with adolescents who report poly-victimization should aim to leverage their motivation and reasons for quitting, as these factors are traditionally associated with positive outcomes. Last, interventions aimed at fostering self-efficacy may also be particularly important to improve long-term outcomes, specifically among adolescents with a history of poly-victimization.