Association of Opioid Overdose Risk Factors and Naloxone Prescribing in US Adults.

Lin LA, Brummett CM, Waljee JF, Englesbe MJ, Gunaseelan V, Bohnert ASB. Association of Opioid Overdose Risk Factors and Naloxone Prescribing in US Adults. Journal of general internal medicine. 2020 Feb 1; 35(2):420-427.

Related HSR&D Project(s)

• CDA 09-204 – Prescription Opiates in Overdoses Among VHA Patients

Dimensions for VA is a web-based tool available to VA staff that enables detailed searches of published research and research projects.

If you have VA-Intranet access, click here for more information vaww.hsrd.research.va.gov/dimensions/

VA staff not currently on the VA network can access Dimensions by registering for an account using their VA email address.    Search Dimensions for VA for this citation
* Don't have VA-internal network access or a VA email address? Try searching the free-to-the-public version of Dimensions

Search for Abstract from PubMed

---

Abstract:

BACKGROUND: Prescribing naloxone to patients is a key strategy to prevent opioid overdoses, but little is known about the reach of naloxone prescribing. OBJECTIVE: Determine patient factors associated with receiving naloxone and trends over time in patients with key overdose risk factors. DESIGN: Retrospective observational study. PARTICIPANTS: Using the Clinformatics DataMart, a US-wide health insurance claims dataset, we compared adults who received opioids and naloxone (opioid+naloxone) from January 2014 to June 2017 with adults who received opioids without naloxone (opioids only), matched on gender, age ± 5 years, month/year of opioid fill, and number of opioid claims. MAIN MEASURES: Key patient-level opioid overdose risk factors included receipt of high-dosage opioids, concurrent benzodiazepines, history of opioid and other substance use disorders, and history of opioid overdose. RESULTS: We included 3963 opioid+naloxone and 19,815 opioid only patients. Key factors associated with naloxone fills included high opioid daily dosage (50 to < 90 morphine milligram equivalents (MME): AOR = 2.43, 95% CI 2.15-2.76 and = 90 MME: AOR = 3.94, 95% CI 3.47-4.46; reference: < 50 MME), receiving concurrent benzodiazepines (AOR = 1.27, 95% CI 1.16-1.38), and having a diagnosis of opioid use disorder (AOR = 1.56, 95% CI 1.40-1.73). History of opioid overdose was not associated with naloxone (AOR = 0.92, 95% CI 0.74-1.15). The percent of patients receiving naloxone increased, yet less than 2% of patients in any of the key overdose risk factor groups received naloxone by the last 6 months of the study period. CONCLUSIONS: Naloxone prescribing has increased and was more likely to be co-prescribed to patients with some risk factors for overdose. However, overall prescribing remains minimal. Additional efforts are needed across health systems to increase naloxone prescribing for patients at risk for opioid overdose.