A mixed methods study of provider factors in buprenorphine treatment retention.

Background: Low retention is a persistent challenge in the delivery of buprenorphine treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD). The goal of this study was to identify provider factors that could drive differences in treatment retention while accounting for the contribution of patient characteristics to retention.

Methods: We developed a novel a mixed-methods approach to explore provider factors that could drive retention while accounting for patient characteristics.

Insights from system dynamics applications in addiction research: A scoping review.

Background And Aims: Substance misuse and use disorders are dynamic and complex problems, situated within systems of interacting social, environmental, and neurobiological factors. System dynamics (SD) methods broaden, test, and improve understanding of complex systems and can help inform effective action. We sought to systematically review the use of SD tools in addiction-related research.

An individualised self-management exercise and education program did not prevent recurrence of low back pain but may reduce care seeking: a randomised trial.

Question: What is the effect of a McKenzie-based self-management exercise and education program on the risk of recurrence of low back pain (LBP) and on the impact of LBP?

Design: Randomised controlled trial with concealed allocation, blinded assessors and intention-to-treat analysis.

Participants: 262 adults recently recovered from an episode of LBP.

Intervention: The experimental group received a McKenzie-based self-management exercise and education program delivered over two individual sessions of 30 to 45 minutes with a physiotherapist, approximately 2 weeks apart.

End-of-life care in COVID-19: An audit of pharmacological management in hospital inpatients.

Background: Hospital clinicians have had to rapidly develop expertise in managing the clinical manifestations of COVID-19 including symptoms common at the end of life, such as breathlessness and agitation. There is limited evidence exploring whether end-of-life symptom control in this group requires new or adapted guidance.

Aim: To review whether prescribing for symptom control in patients dying with COVID-19 adhered to existing local guidance or whether there was deviation which may represent a need for revised guidance or specialist support in particular patient groups.

Palliative opioid use, palliative sedation and euthanasia: reaffirming the distinction.

We read with interest the extended essay published from Riisfeldt and are encouraged by an empirical ethics article which attempts to ground theory and its claims in the real world. However, such attempts also have real-world consequences. We are concerned to read the paper's conclusion that clinical evidence weakens the distinction between euthanasia and normal palliative care prescribing.