Opioid and cocaine use among primary care patients on buprenorphine —Self-report and urine drug tests

In the United States, guidelines recommend that patients with opioid use disorder (OUD) treated with buprenorphine in office-based settings be monitored for treatment adherence and substance use with urine drug tests (UDTs; SAMHSA, 2018). Accordingly, as per a 2015 survey of American Society of Addiction Medicine members, 93% of the respondents prescribe buprenorphine and 79% use UDTs as a way to monitor patient adherence and further assess aberrant behaviors (Kirsh et al., 2015). Despite this recommendation and these practices, the current medical literature does not provide extensive evidence for the utility of UDTs for patients with OUD receiving buprenorphine in primary care.

Source: Drug and Alcohol Dependence - October 3, 2018 Category: Addiction Authors: Sarah M. Bagley, Debbie M. Cheng, Michael Winter, Daniel P. Alford, Colleen LaBelle, Alexander Y. Walley, Jeffrey H. Samet Tags: Full length article Source Type: research