Buprenorphine maintenance: Office-based treatment with addiction clinic support

Autor(en)

Romana Ortner, Reinhold Jagsch, Andjela Primorac, Gabriele Fischer

Abstrakt

Introduction: Buprenorphine has already been registered in 27 European countries for maintenance therapy in opioid-dependent patients. In our office-based prescription study we applied sublingual buprenorphine, initiating the treatment at the addiction clinic with subsequent treatment at the offices of general practitioners (GPs) to evaluate its efficacy and feasibility in two different treatment settings. Methods: Sixty opioid-dependent patients were studied for a period of 15 weeks. The first 3 weeks of treatment initiation took place at the addiction clinic, followed by 12 weeks of treatment by GPs. Mean outcome measures were retention rate and additional consumption of illicit substances in addition to the evaluation of whether buprenorphine can be prescribed successfully by GPs. Results: The retention rate was 57% (n = 34). No significant differences occurred between the treatment phases at the specialized addiction unit and the GPs' offices. During the 15-week period a significant improvement in well-being and a significant reduction in craving for heroin (p <0.001) and cocaine (p <0.001) could be calculated for patients stabilized on a mean dose of 16 mg buprenorphine. Furthermore a significant reduction in additional consumption of opioids (p <0.001) was found. Discussion: Our results show the involvement of office-based prescription, which should further encourage colleagues to treat opioid-dependent subjects with buprenorphine to make more treatment options for this target group available. Copyright © 2004 S. Karger AG, Basel.

Organisation(en)

Externe Organisation(en)

Medizinische Universität Wien

Journal

European Addiction Research

Band

10

Seiten

105-111

Anzahl der Seiten

7

ISSN

1022-6877

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1159/000077698

Publikationsdatum

2004

Peer-reviewed

Ja

ÖFOS 2012

5010 Psychologie

Link zum Portal

https://ucris.univie.ac.at/portal/de/publications/buprenorphine-maintenance-officebased-treatment-with-addiction-clinic-support(96c932af-3c9e-488d-b504-be4dd2142576).html