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Perceptions of extended-release buprenorphine injections for opioid use disorder among people who regularly use opioids in Australia

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posted on 2023-05-20, 11:54 authored by Larance, B, Degenhardt, L, Grebely, J, Nielsen, S, Raimondo BrunoRaimondo Bruno, Dietze, P, Lancaster, K, Larney, S, Santo, T, Shanahan, M, Memedovic, S, Ali, R, Farrell, M

Aims: To examine perceptions of extended-release (XR) buprenorphine injections among people who regularly use opioids in Australia.

Design: Cross-sectional survey prior to implementation. XR-buprenorphine was registered in Australia in November 2018. Setting Sydney, Melbourne and Hobart.

Participants: A total of 402 people who regularly use opioids interviewed December 2017 to March 2018.

Measurements: Primary outcome concerned the proportion of participants who believed XR-buprenorphine would be a good treatment option for them, preferred weekly versus monthly injections and perceived advantages/disadvantages of XR-buprenorphine. Independent variables concerned the demographic characteristics and features of current opioid agonist treatment (OAT; medication-type, dose, prescriber/dosing setting, unsupervised doses, out-of-pocket expenses and travel distance).

Findings: Sixty-eight per cent [95% confidence interval (CI) = 63–73%] believed XR-buprenorphine was a good treatment option for them. They were more likely to report being younger [26–35 versus > 55 years; odds ratio (OR) = 3.16, 95% CI = 1.12–8.89; P = 0.029], being female (OR = 1.67, 95% CI = 1.04–2.69; P = 0.034), < 10 years school education (OR = 1.87, 95% CI = 1.12–3.12; P = 0.016) and past-month heroin (OR = 1.81, 95% CI = 1.15–2.85; P = 0.006) and methamphetamine use (OR = 1.90, 95% CI = 1.20–3.01; P = 0.006). Fifty-four per cent reported no preference for weekly versus monthly injections, 7% preferred weekly and 39% preferred monthly. Among OAT recipients (n = 255), believing XR-buprenorphine was a good treatment option was associated with shorter treatment episodes (1–2 versus ≥ 2 years; OR = 3.93, 95% CI = 1.26– 12.22; P = 0.018), fewer unsupervised doses (≤ 8 doses past-month versus no take-aways; OR = 0.50; 95% CI = 0.27– 0.93; P = 0.028) and longer travel distance (≥ 5 versus < 5 km; OR = 2.10, 95% CI = 1.20–3.65; P = 0.009). Sixtynine per cent reported ‘no problems or concerns’ with potential differences in availability, flexibility and location of XRbuprenorphine.

Conclusions: Among regular opioid users in Australia, perceptions of extended-release buprenorphine as a good treatment option are associated with being female, recent illicit drug use and factors relating to the (in)convenience of current opioid agonist treatment.

History

Publication title

Addiction

Pagination

1-11

ISSN

0965-2140

Department/School

School of Psychological Sciences

Publisher

Wiley-Blackwell

Place of publication

United Kingdom

Rights statement

© 2019 The Authors. Addiction published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society for the Study of Addiction. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.

Repository Status

  • Open

Socio-economic Objectives

Public health (excl. specific population health) not elsewhere classified