Comparative study of visits to Hospital Emergency Department for opioid overdose in two periods.

Objective: The last few years have seen an increase in the use of opioid analgesics and in the incidence of opioid overdoses. The objective of this study was to evaluate the number of overdose-related visits to a  university hospital emergency department at two different periods of time  to analyze potential differences in terms of patient characteristics,  prescription profile, and treatment.

Method: This is a retrospective observational study of opioid  verdoserelated visits in two periods of time: 2009-2014 and 2018-2020.