Characteristics of Patients With Opioid Use Disorder Associated With Performing Overdose Reversals in the Community: An Opioid Treatment Program Analysis

OBJECTIVE: The primary outcome of this study is to identify characteristics of study participants in a large opioid treatment program (OTP) for opioid use disorder (OUD) who used take-home naloxone to perform 1 or more opioid overdose (OD) reversal(s) in the community. METHODS: This 6-month prospective cohort study provided take-home naloxone and opioid OD education for 287 study participants with OUD. Characteristics associated with use of the take-home naloxone were determined from among 16 variables using multivariable logistic regression. RESULTS: The study participants who had greater odds of using the take-home naloxone to perform OD reversals, compared to those who did not use the take-home naloxone, (a) received emergency room care themselves for OD (OR = 4.89, 95% CI 1.54–15.52, P = 0.007), (b) previously witnessed someone else OD (OR = 5.67, 95% CI 1.24–25.87, P = 0.025), (c) tested positive for 2 or more illicit substances at their 6-month urine analysis (OR = 5.26, 95% CI 1.58–17.54, P = 0.007) or were missing their 6-month urine analysis (OR = 3.46, 95% CI 1.42–8.43, P = 0.006). In addition, they had greater odds of being (d) less than 30 years old (OR = 2.80, 95% CI 1.02–7.66, P = 0.045), and (e) Hispanic (OR = 3.98, 95% CI 1.41–11.21, P = 0.009). CONCLUSIONS: This study prospectively identified several characteristics of patients enrolled in an OTP with increased odds of using take-home naloxone in their social networks. Future harm reduction efforts may benefit by using targeted characteristics to identify those most likely to use naloxone in their communities.