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Qualitative assessment of take-home naloxone program participant and law enforcement interactions in British Columbia

BACKGROUND: The British Columbia take-home naloxone (BCTHN) program has been in operation since 2012 and has resulted in the successful reversal of over 581 opioid overdoses. The study aims to explore BCTHN program participant perspectives about the program, barriers to participants contacting emerg...

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Autores principales: Deonarine, Andrew, Amlani, Ashraf, Ambrose, Graham, Buxton, Jane A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2016
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4875634/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27206486
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12954-016-0106-1
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author Deonarine, Andrew
Amlani, Ashraf
Ambrose, Graham
Buxton, Jane A.
author_facet Deonarine, Andrew
Amlani, Ashraf
Ambrose, Graham
Buxton, Jane A.
author_sort Deonarine, Andrew
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: The British Columbia take-home naloxone (BCTHN) program has been in operation since 2012 and has resulted in the successful reversal of over 581 opioid overdoses. The study aims to explore BCTHN program participant perspectives about the program, barriers to participants contacting emergency services (calling “911”) during an overdose, and perspectives of law enforcement officials on naloxone administration by police officers. METHODS: Two focus groups and four individual interviews were conducted with BCTHN program participants; interviews with two law enforcement officials were also conducted. Qualitative analysis of all transcripts was performed. RESULTS: Positive themes about the BCTHN program from participants included easy to understand training, correcting misperceptions in the community, and positive interactions with emergency services. Potential barriers to contacting emergency services during an overdose include concerns about being arrested for outstanding warrants or for other illegal activities (such as drug possession) and confiscation of kits. Law enforcement officials noted that warrants were complex situational issues, kits would normally not be confiscated, and admitted arrests for drug possession or other activities may not serve the public good in an overdose situation. Law enforcement officials were concerned about legal liability and jurisdictional/authorization issues if naloxone administration privileges were expanded to police. CONCLUSIONS: Program participants and law enforcement officials expressed differing perspectives about warrants, kit confiscation, and arrests. Facilitating communication between BCTHN program participants and other stakeholders may address some of the confusion and remove potential barriers to further improving program outcomes. Naloxone administration by law enforcement would require policies to address jurisdiction/authorization and liability issues.
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spelling pubmed-48756342016-05-22 Qualitative assessment of take-home naloxone program participant and law enforcement interactions in British Columbia Deonarine, Andrew Amlani, Ashraf Ambrose, Graham Buxton, Jane A. Harm Reduct J Research BACKGROUND: The British Columbia take-home naloxone (BCTHN) program has been in operation since 2012 and has resulted in the successful reversal of over 581 opioid overdoses. The study aims to explore BCTHN program participant perspectives about the program, barriers to participants contacting emergency services (calling “911”) during an overdose, and perspectives of law enforcement officials on naloxone administration by police officers. METHODS: Two focus groups and four individual interviews were conducted with BCTHN program participants; interviews with two law enforcement officials were also conducted. Qualitative analysis of all transcripts was performed. RESULTS: Positive themes about the BCTHN program from participants included easy to understand training, correcting misperceptions in the community, and positive interactions with emergency services. Potential barriers to contacting emergency services during an overdose include concerns about being arrested for outstanding warrants or for other illegal activities (such as drug possession) and confiscation of kits. Law enforcement officials noted that warrants were complex situational issues, kits would normally not be confiscated, and admitted arrests for drug possession or other activities may not serve the public good in an overdose situation. Law enforcement officials were concerned about legal liability and jurisdictional/authorization issues if naloxone administration privileges were expanded to police. CONCLUSIONS: Program participants and law enforcement officials expressed differing perspectives about warrants, kit confiscation, and arrests. Facilitating communication between BCTHN program participants and other stakeholders may address some of the confusion and remove potential barriers to further improving program outcomes. Naloxone administration by law enforcement would require policies to address jurisdiction/authorization and liability issues. BioMed Central 2016-05-21 /pmc/articles/PMC4875634/ /pubmed/27206486 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12954-016-0106-1 Text en © Deonarine et al. 2016 Open AccessThis article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
spellingShingle Research
Deonarine, Andrew
Amlani, Ashraf
Ambrose, Graham
Buxton, Jane A.
Qualitative assessment of take-home naloxone program participant and law enforcement interactions in British Columbia
title Qualitative assessment of take-home naloxone program participant and law enforcement interactions in British Columbia
title_full Qualitative assessment of take-home naloxone program participant and law enforcement interactions in British Columbia
title_fullStr Qualitative assessment of take-home naloxone program participant and law enforcement interactions in British Columbia
title_full_unstemmed Qualitative assessment of take-home naloxone program participant and law enforcement interactions in British Columbia
title_short Qualitative assessment of take-home naloxone program participant and law enforcement interactions in British Columbia
title_sort qualitative assessment of take-home naloxone program participant and law enforcement interactions in british columbia
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4875634/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27206486
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12954-016-0106-1
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