- During the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. government allowed qualified practitioners to remotely prescribe buprenorphine to treat opioid use disorder.
- A cross-sectional study looked at 74,474 opioid-involved overdose deaths from July 2019 to June 2021.
- Researchers report that buprenorphine was involved in less than 3% of opioid-involved overdose deaths during this time period.
- The proportion of opioid-involved overdose deaths involving buprenorphine did not increase when prescription regulations were loosened due to the pandemic.
Health practitioners consider medication-assisted treatment to be the
Both prescription and illegal use of opioids can lead to the disorder. Some examples of opioids include:
Over time, individuals can become dependent on opioids. When they attempt to stop taking the drugs, they might experience physical and psychological withdrawal symptoms.
A doctor may prescribe medication-assisted treatment using methadone or buprenorphine.
Buprenorphine belongs to a class of drugs called
A cross-sectional
In it, researchers report that the proportion of deaths from opioid overdose involving buprenorphine did not increase in the months after the government loosened regulations for prescribing buprenorphine during the COVID-19 pandemic. The changes included allowing qualified prescribers to remotely prescribe the drug over the internet and the phone.
Beth Macy, a journalist who chronicles the United States’ opioid epidemic in the books “Dopesick” and “Raising Lazarus,” told Medical News Today that the study…
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