Take-home naloxone administered in emergency settings: feasibility of intervention implementation in a cluster randomized trial
Opioids kill more people than any other class of drug. Naloxone is an opioid antagonist which can be distributed in kits for peer administration. Researchers assessed the feasibility of implementing a Take-home Naloxone (THN) intervention in emergency settings, as part of designing a definitive randomised controlled trial (RCT).
Main Points
- At two intervention sites, randomly selected from 4, 299/687 (43.5%) clinical staff were trained (ED1 = 107, AS1 = 121, ED2 = 25, AS2 = 46).
- Sixty THN kits were supplied to eligible patients (21.7%) (n: ED1 = 36, AS1 = 4, ED2 = 16, AS2 = 4).
- Across sites, kits were not issued to eligible patients on a further 164 occasions, with reasons reported including: staff forgot (n = 136), staff too busy (n = 15), and suspected intentional overdose (n = 3), no kit available (n = 2), already given by drugs nurse (n = 4), other (n = 4).
- Staff recorded 626 other patients as ineligible but considered for inclusion, with reasons listed as: patient admitted to hospital (n = 194), patient absconded (n = 161) already recruited (n = 64), uncooperative or abusive (n = 55), staff not trained (n = 43), reduced consciousness level (n = 41), lack of capacity (n = 35), patient in custody (n = 21), other (n = 12).
- No adverse events were reported.