THE use of medicine for opioid dependence has increased by 33% over the last 10 years, especially in very remote areas, researchers from the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre (NDARC) at UNSW Sydney have revealed.
The Trends in use of medicines for opioid agonist treatment in Australia, 2013-2022 research paper also found that buprenorphine now replaces methadone as the most common medicine for opioid dependence.
A new formulation of buprenorphine, a long-acting injectable administered weekly or monthly, was introduced in Sep 2019 (PD 26 Aug 2019), and offers an alternative to existing formulations like methadone, which often require daily supervised dosing at a local pharmacy or clinic.
Policy changes during COVID-19 were associated with its increased use, as it allowed clients to continue treatment while reducing social interactions.
The nationwide study, which was recently published in the International Journal of Drug Policy, also found there was an uptick in the use of opioid agonist treatment (OAT) in non-community pharmacy settings from early 2020, particularly in drug and alcohol outpatient clinics and prisons.
"With these recent changes, we wanted to conduct a detailed examination of OAT medicines in Australia and to consider periodic factors that may have affected patterns of utilisation," Dr Chrianna Bharat, the lead researcher of the paper, shared.
"We accessed monthly sales data on all formulations of OAT medicines (methadone, sublingual buprenorphine, and long-acting injectable buprenorphine) between 2013 and 2022.
"Based on daily average doses, we then converted this data into an estimate of the number of clients that could be treated with these medicines each month (or 'client-months')," she explained.
Co-author of the paper, Kendal Chidwick, who is a pharmacist and epidemiologist at NDARC, emphasised that these changes to the pattern of use in Australia meant monitoring changes to outcomes, at a population level, as well as the cost-effectiveness of OAT, will be essential. JM
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