“This is the Medscape Psychiatry Minute. I’m Dr Peter Yellowlees.
The use of medication-assisted treatment for addictions is becoming increasingly common. However, we don’t know whether there are associations between medications for alcohol and opioid use disorders (acamprosate, naltrexone, methadone, and buprenorphine) and suicidal behavior, accidental overdoses, and crime.
Now a team of investigator] from the University of Oxford, England, have investigated this question in a within-individual population cohort study of 21,281 individuals in Swedish registries who received treatment with at least one of these four medications between 2005 and 2013.
No significant associations were found for acamprosate, but for naltrexone there was a reduction in accidental overdoses. Buprenorphine was associated with reduced arrest rates for all crime categories, as well as a reduction in accidental overdoses. For methadone, there were significant reductions in the rate of suicidal behaviors as well as reductions in all crime categories. The authors concluded that medications currently used to treat alcohol and opioid use disorders also appear to reduce suicidality and crime during treatment.”
Read more at: https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/907874
Source: Medscape.com – February 6, 2019
