Emergency Department Peer Support Program and Patient Outcomes After Opioid Overdose.

Importance: Patients treated in emergency departments (EDs) for opioid overdose often need drug treatment yet are rarely linked to services after discharge. Emergency department-based peer support is a promising approach for promoting treatment linkage, but evidence of its effectiveness is lacking.

Objective: To examine the association of the Opioid Overdose Recovery Program (OORP), an ED peer recovery support service, with postdischarge addiction treatment initiation, repeat overdose, and acute care utilization.

Peer Recovery Specialists and Referrals to Treatment: Clinical Correlates Among Patients of an Opioid Overdose Recovery Program in New Jersey.

Background: Peer recovery programs increase recovery support and treatment engagement among individuals with opioid use disorder. Peer recovery specialists (PRS) are critical in the cascade of care of treating addiction and related conditions. Work remains to help identify the benefits of PRS, particularly time spent with a PRS as a clinical indicator associated with referral to substance use treatment services.

Advancing the behavioral health workforce: An innovative integrated care and substance use disorder training model to improve outcomes for people in medically underserved communities.

Introduction: It is critical that we strengthen the ability of the behavioral health workforce to better manage the complex behavioral and physical health needs of people in medically underserved areas. Despite the knowledge that integrated care (IC) models improve patient outcomes and experience, provider satisfaction, and health care costs, educational and experiential training in IC is limited, limiting workforce capacity to deliver this care.

Method: Through the Health Resources and Services Administration-funded Rutgers University Integrated Substance Use Disorder Training Program (RUISTP), we partner with community-based primary care clinics to implement an interprofessional fellowship program for psychologists, social workers, physician assistants, and advanced practice nurses.

Knowledge of Predatory Practices within the Substance Use Disorder Treatment Industry: Development of a Measurement Instrument.

Unlabelled: The increase in predatory practices in the substance use disorder treatment industry calls for the development of measures to assess individuals' knowledge about these practices.

Methods: This study describes the development of the Knowledge of Predatory Practices Scale (KPPS), a newly developed measure designed to assess the knowledge of predatory practices within the substance use disorder treatment industry. An exploratory factor analysis was conducted to determine the factor structure of this measure.

Polysubstance use latent class membership in New Jersey: Association with prior overdoses, prior emergency department peer recovery engagement, and mental health diagnosis among participants in an opioid overdose recovery program.

Epidemiological research has indicated higher polysubstance use among individuals who misuse opioids in the United States. Polysubstance use is also associated with multiple emergency department (ED) engagements in intervention services. Less is known about polysubstance use among individuals who use opioids or were engaged in an ED setting as part of an opioid recovery intervention program.

Measuring Youth Empowerment: An Item Response Theory Analysis of the Sociopolitical Control Scale for Youth.

Sociopolitical control (SPC) has been identified as a key element of the intrapersonal component of psychological empowerment. The Sociopolitical Control Scale (SPCS) is a widely used measure and has been modified for use among youth (SPCS-Y). In light of the emerging interest in SPC among youth within community-based research, this study applied item response theory (IRT) to examine the psychometric properties of the SPCS-Y and to explore a brief version.

Emergency department-based peer support for opioid use disorder: Emergent functions and forms.

Emergency department (ED)-based peer support programs aimed at linking persons with opioid use disorder (OUD) to medication for addiction treatment and other recovery services are a promising approach to addressing the opioid crisis. This brief report draws on experiences from three states' experience with such programs funded by the SAMHSA Opioid State Targeted Repose (STR) grants. Core functions of such programs include: Integration of peer supports in EDs; Alerting peers of eligible patients and making the patient aware of peer services; and connecting patients with recovery services.

Promoting opioid overdose prevention and recovery: An exploratory study of an innovative intervention model to address opioid abuse.

Background: Fatal opioid overdose is a national public health concern in the United States and a critical problem confronting New Jersey's addiction treatment system. New Jersey developed an innovative program, the Opioid Overdose Recovery Program (OORP), to address the epidemic and the issue of low treatment admissions following a non-fatal overdose. The OORP utilizes an intervention model with peer recovery specialists (RSs) and patient navigators (PNs) to engage individuals within emergency departments (EDs) immediately following an opioid overdose reversal.

Measuring Sense of Community Responsibility in Community-Based Prevention Coalitions: An Item Response Theory Analysis.

Research on sense of community (SOC) has traditionally been approached from a resource perspective. Recently, however, research on the experience of SOC has evolved to include a related but distinct construct of sense of community responsibility (SOC-R), or feelings of accountability for the well-being of a community. This study applied item response theory to examine the psychometric properties of a SOC-R scale used in an evaluation of community-based substance abuse prevention coalitions.

High-Risk Obtainment of Prescription Drugs by Older Adults in New Jersey: The Role of Prescription Opioids.

Objectives: To explore the high-risk ways in which older adults obtain prescription opioids and to identify predictors of obtaining prescription opioids from high-risk sources, such as obtaining the same drug from multiple doctors, sharing drugs, and stealing prescription pads.

Design: Logistic regression analyses of cross-sectional survey data from the New Jersey Older Adult Survey on Drug Use and Health, a representative random-sample survey.

Participants: Adults aged 60 and older (N = 725).