TDNet Discover

Background: Opioid drug abuse is among the most pressing public-health crises in the developed world. The timely administration of naloxone can emergently reverse an otherwise fatal suppression of the respiratory drive brought on by an opioid overdose. As opioids have become more ubiquitously prescribed, there has been an incongruent increase in the popularity of naloxone. Objective: To determine, based upon current, evidence-based, and peer reviewed research publications, whether the distribution and concurrent prescription of take-home naloxone (THN) to those prescribed opioids, has been an effective strategy in combatting opioidrelated overdose deaths. Methods: Three physician assistant students, with oversight from two faculty members, performed research after aggregating peer reviewed article materials published within PubMed, New England Journal of Medicine, Journal of Addiction Medicine, UpToDate, and the National Institutes of Health Library online resources. These publications discussed patient medical records, surveys and studies of patients’ and/or medical providers’ attitudes and knowledge about naloxone prescription, and surveys and studies which attempt to describe improvements to current take-home naloxone prescription accessibility. A final pertinent selection of articles was determined after data and quality analysis measures were performed on all initially identified articles. Results: Authors of these publications had ranging positions regarding the efficacy of implementing take-home naloxone prescription practices as a means to decrease opioid overdoses. While authors recognized and acknowledged the pharmacologic lifesaving properties of naloxone, many stated that future research dedicated to establishing and quantitatively defining clear overdose-mitigation metrics of success on a population-wide basis still needs to be performed. Conclusion: In the future, to objectively determine the efficacy of concurrently prescribing THN with opioids as it relates to mitigating opioid-related overdose iv deaths, additional research may contribute to this field of knowledge by measuring the effectiveness of implementing standardized education protocols for providers and patients regarding naloxone, developing criteria to stratify and qualify patients for a co-prescription of naloxone based on overdose risk, and tracking the effectiveness of distributed naloxone.