Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Public Health and Surveillance
Date Submitted: Apr 1, 2021
Open Peer Review Period: Mar 31, 2021 - Apr 14, 2021
Date Accepted: May 10, 2021
Date Submitted to PubMed: May 17, 2021
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Increases in Naloxone Administrations by Emergency Medical Services Providers During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Retrospective Time-Series Study
ABSTRACT
Background:
The opioid crisis in the United States may be exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Objective:
The current study examines changes in naloxone administrations during Emergency Medical Service (EMS) runs for opioid-related overdoses during the COVID-19 pandemic in Guilford County, North Carolina.
Methods:
A period-over-period approach was used to explore EMS data from Guilford County, North Carolina on opioid overdose-related runs. We compared trends in the frequency of opioid-related EMS runs, naloxone administrations (NAs), and multiple naloxone administrations (MNAs) 29 weeks before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, past data were used to generate a quasi-control distribution of period-over-period changes to compare the change observed during the COVID-19 period to each 29-week period back to January 1, 2014.
Results:
All outcomes increased during the COVID-19 period. Compared to the previous 29 weeks, we observed significant proportional increases in mean number of opioid-related EMS runs (37.4%), NAs (57.8%), and MNAs (84.8%). Compared to each previous 29-week period, the COVID-19 period saw increases across all outcomes that were greater than 91% of all past period-over-period changes.
Conclusions:
The current study is the first to report increases in both incidence (NAs) and severity (MNAs) of opioid overdoses during the COVID-19 pandemic. For a host of reasons that need to be explored, the COVID-19 pandemic appears to markedly increase the occurrence and lethality of the opioid crisis in Guilford County, NC.
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