Impact of UNODC/WHO S-O-S (stop-overdose-safely) training on opioid overdose knowledge and attitudes among people at high or low risk of opioid overdose in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Ukraine.

Introduction: Opioid overdose education and naloxone distribution (OEND) is an evidence-based strategy to reduce opioid overdose deaths in line with guidance provided by the World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). However, OEND effectiveness has rarely been examined in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The WHO/UNODC Stop Overdose Safely (S-O-S) project involved training of > 14,000 potential opioid overdose witnesses in opioid overdose response (including the administration of naloxone) in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Ukraine.

Prevalence of opioid dependence in Scotland 2015-2020: A multi-parameter estimation of prevalence (MPEP) study.

Background And Aims: Drug-related deaths in Scotland more than doubled between 2011 and 2020. To inform policymakers and understand drivers of this increase, we estimated the number of people with opioid dependence aged 15-64 from 2014/15 to 2019/20.

Design: We fitted a Bayesian multi-parameter estimation of prevalence (MPEP) model, using adverse event rates to estimate prevalence of opioid dependence jointly from Opioid Agonist Therapy (OAT), opioid-related mortality and hospital admissions data.

A study protocol for a European, mixed methods, prospective, cohort study of the effectiveness of naloxone administration by community members, in reversing opioid overdose: NalPORS.

Background: Worldwide, opioid use causes more than 100,000 overdose deaths annually. Naloxone has proven efficacy in reversing opioid overdoses and is approved as an emergency antidote to opioid overdose. Take home naloxone (THN) programmes have been introduced to provide 'community members', who are likely to observe opioid overdoses, with naloxone kits and train them to recognise an overdose and administer naloxone.

Scotland's national naloxone program: The prison experience.

Launched in 2011, the Scottish national naloxone program marked an important development in public health policy. Central to its design were strategies to engage prisoners given their elevated risk of drug-related death in the weeks following liberation. Implementation across Scottish prisons has posed particular challenges linked to both operational issues within prison establishments and individual factors affecting staff delivering, and prisoners engaging, with the program.