Evaluating supervised opioid antagonist treatment consumption

Opioid Agonist Treatment (OAT) is used to treat people who are dependent on opioids – usually heroin. Opioids are also a type of drug commonly used in medicine to relieve pain. Some, such as morphine, fentanyl and methadone are available on prescription. Opioids are controlled drugs – supplying heroin or other opioids for recreational use is illegal.

The people affected by opioid-related problems are given replacement opioids such as methadone or buprenorphine to help them manage their condition. These replacement therapies work by reducing cravings and helping to prevent withdrawal symptoms in people who are dependent on opioids.

We will use data from a community drug agency and link it to hospital data about drug-related harm and deaths. This will help us explore if daily supervised or unsupervised medication consumption are associated with patient hospitalisations, drug-overdoses and deaths as well as people’s engagement with OAT.