Background: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines recommend naloxone for every high-dose opioid prescription; in 2018, only 1 naloxone prescription was dispensed for every 69 high-dose opioid prescriptions. In Virginia, strategies for creating awareness and availability include the REVIVE! training and the standing protocol for pharmacists to dispense naloxone.
Objectives: To evaluate if a proactive offer for counseling by pharmacists improves the percent change of patients who receive a prescription for naloxone nasal spray compared with the previous year's naloxone nasal spray fill history and to determine if the pharmacist's counseling affects a patient's confidence with opioid overdose and naloxone use.
Methods: Prospective 4-month, interventional study in southwest Virginia conducted at 5 geographically similar large community chain pharmacies. A National Drug Code activity report within each store was used to identify patients, aged 18-64 years, filling opioid medication without naloxone. A pharmacist recommended naloxone to patients at the point of care. Patients accepting the recommendation for naloxone received pharmacist counseling from a standardized counseling script and by using a naloxone nasal spray demo kit. All eligible patients were provided a postintervention survey assessing their confidence with naloxone, if naloxone had been recommended before, and if they were picking up naloxone on the basis of the pharmacist's recommendation. Results were analyzed using univariate and bivariate analyses.
Results: A total of 121 naloxone prescriptions were dispensed; an increase of 36% compared with the same period during the previous year. In total, 38 patients completed the postintervention survey. After receiving pharmacist counseling, patients indicated being very confident with administering naloxone correctly and for recognizing an opioid overdose, 73.9% and 65.2%, respectively. Of the patients who completed the survey, 60.5% received naloxone and accepted counseling from the pharmacist.
Conclusion: After pharmacist counseling, naloxone dispensing increased, and patients were confident with both administration and recognition.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.japh.2020.12.007 | DOI Listing |
Eur J Clin Pharmacol
January 2025
Department of the Acute Pain Service, St. Luke's University Health Network, 801 Ostrum St, Bethlehem, PA, 18015, USA.
Purpose: Opioid medications remain a common treatment for acute pain in hospitalized patients. This study aims to identify factors contributing to opioid overdose in the inpatient population, addressing the gap in data on which patients are at higher risk for opioid-related adverse events in the hospital setting.
Methods: A retrospective chart review of inpatients receiving at least one opioid medication was performed at a large academic medical center from January 1, 2022, through December 31, 2022.
Nat Commun
January 2025
Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Thomas J. Long School of Pharmacy, University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA, US.
The opioid crisis, driven by synthetic opioids like fentanyl, demands innovative solutions. The opioid antidote naloxone has a short action ( ~ 1 hour), requiring repeated doses. To address this, we present a new and simple naloxone prodrug delivery system repurposing a hydrophilic derivative of acoramidis, a potent transthyretin ligand.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBMC Neurosci
January 2025
National Brain Research Centre, Manesar, Gurugram, 122052, Haryana, India.
Delta-opioid receptors (δ-ORs) are known to be involved in associative learning and modulating motivational states. We wanted to study if they were also involved in naturally-occurring reinforcement learning behaviors such as vocal learning, using the zebra finch model system. Zebra finches learn to vocalize early in development and song learning in males is affected by factors such as the social environment and internal reward, both of which are modulated by endogenous opioids.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Dermatolog Treat
December 2025
Hospital for Skin Diseases, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College, Nanjing, Jiangsu, China.
Background: Hailey-Hailey disease (HHD), a genetic blistering disease, is caused by a mutation in a calcium transporter protein in the Golgi apparatus encoded by the gene. Clinically, HHD is characterized by flaccid vesicles, blisters, erosions, fissures, and maceration mainly in intertriginous regions. Some patients remain refractory to conventional treatments.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Drug Policy
January 2025
Centre de recherche du Centre Hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal (CRCHUM), 900 rue St-Denis, Montréal, Québec H2X 0A9, Canada; Department of Emergency and Family Medicine, Université de Montréal, 2900 blvd Edouard Montpetit, Montréal, Québec H3T 1J4, Canada; National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, UNSW Sydney, Anzac Parade, Kensington NSW 2052, Australia. Electronic address:
Background: Supervised injection sites (SIS) offer a hygienic environment in which people can inject drugs under observation; as such, these harm reduction services have been on the forefront of the overdose epidemic. We sought to understand factors predictive of an overdose requiring an emergency response intervention at SIS in Montréal, Canada.
Methods: We used administrative data from all four Montréal SIS from 1 March 2018 - 31 October 2022 to first calculate the rate of onsite overdose requiring intervention (e.
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