Barriers to initiation of extended release naltrexone among HIV-infected adults with alcohol use disorders

A pilot randomized controlled trial of medication adherence therapy: Psychosocial leverage using a significant other (MAT-PLUS) for individuals on extended-release naltrexone

BACKGROUND

Extended-release naltrexone (XR-NTX) is an important treatment option for individuals with opioid use disorder (OUD) and/or alcohol use disorder (AUD). However, problems with retention are a major barrier to its overall effectiveness, and interventions to improve adherence are underdeveloped. The purpose of this study was to pilot test the MAT-PLUS intervention, which combines assertive outreach and involvement of a treatment significant other (TSO) to improve adherence to XR-NTX.

METHODS

Adults (N = 41) seeking treatment for OUD and/or AUD with XR-NTX were recruited from an inpatient addiction treatment center and randomized to the MAT-PLUS intervention or treatment as usual (TAU) for 16-weeks. TSOs (N = 19) of individuals in the MAT-PLUS condition were also enrolled. The primary outcome was the number of XR-NTX doses received and relapse to regular heavy use (opioid or alcohol) was a secondary outcome.

RESULTS

Participants in the MAT-PLUS group received 3.4 doses compared to 2.5 in TAU, which was significant after controlling for SUD diagnosis (p < 0.05). Rates of receipts of all prescribed doses were 61.1 % in MAT-PLUS compared to 30.4 % in TAU, giving an NNT of 3.3. Relapse rates and days of heavy use did not vary by treatment group.

CONCLUSIONS

This study demonstrates preliminary efficacy of the MAT-PLUS intervention for XR-NTX adherence. This study was limited by its small sample size and future research should broaden the intervention to apply across medications for SUD in larger samples. Family support with an emphasis on medication adherence has strong potential for improving addiction treatment outcomes.

Prevalence and Correlates of Heavy Alcohol use among People Living with HIV who use Unregulated Drugs in Vancouver, Canada

Among people living with HIV (PLWH), heavy alcohol use is associated with many negative health consequences. However, the impacts of heavy alcohol use are not well described for PLWH who use drugs. Thus, we investigated the prevalence and correlates of heavy alcohol use among a cohort of people who use drugs (PWUD) living with HIV in Vancouver, Canada. We accessed data from an ongoing community-recruited prospective cohort of PLWH who use drugs with linked comprehensive HIV clinical monitoring data. We used generalized linear mixed-effects modeling to identify factors longitudinally associated with periods of heavy alcohol use between December 2005 and December 2019. Of the 896 participants included, 291 (32.5%) reported at least one period with heavy alcohol use. Periods of recent incarceration (Adjusted Odds Ratio [AOR] = 1.48, 95% Confidence Interval [CI]: 1.01-2.17), encounters with police (AOR = 1.87, 95% CI: 1.37-2.56), and older age (AOR = 1.05, 95% CI: 1.02-1.07) were positively associated with heavy alcohol use. Engagement in drug or alcohol treatment (AOR = 0.54, 95% CI: 0.42-0.70) and male gender (AOR = 0.46; 95% CI: 0.27-0.78) were negatively associated with heavy alcohol use. We observed that heavy alcohol use was clearly linked to involvement with the criminal justice system. These findings, together with the protective effects of substance use treatment, suggest the need to expand access for drug and alcohol treatment programs overall, and in particular through the criminal justice system to reduce alcohol-related harms among PLWH who use drugs.

Service-level barriers to and facilitators of accessibility to treatment for problematic alcohol use: a scoping review

Introduction

Services to treat problematic alcohol use (PAU) should be highly accessible to optimize treatment engagement. We conducted a scoping review to map characteristics of services for the treatment of PAU that have been reported in the literature to be barriers to or facilitators of access to treatment from the perspective of individuals with PAU.

Methods

A protocol was developed a priori, registered, and published. We searched MEDLINE®, Embase, the Cochrane Library, and additional grey literature sources from 2010 to April 2022 to identify primary qualitative research and surveys of adults with current or past PAU requiring treatment that were designed to identify modifiable characteristics of PAU treatment services (including psychosocial and pharmacologic interventions) that were perceived to be barriers to or facilitators of access to treatment. Studies of concurrent PAU and other substance use disorders were excluded. Study selection was performed by multiple review team members. Emergent barriers were coded and mapped to the accessibility dimensions of the Levesque framework of healthcare access, then descriptively summarized.

Results

One-hundred-and-nine included studies reported an extensive array of unique service-level barriers that could act alone or together to prevent treatment accessibility. These included but were not limited to lack of an obvious entry point, complexity of the care pathway, high financial cost, unacceptably long wait times, lack of geographically accessible treatment, inconvenient appointment hours, poor cultural/demographic sensitivity, lack of anonymity/privacy, lack of services to treat concurrent PAU and mental health problems.

Discussion

Barriers generally aligned with recent reviews of the substance use disorder literature. Ranking of barriers may be explored in a future discrete choice experiment of PAU service users. The rich qualitative findings of this review may support the design of new or modification of existing services for people with PAU to improve accessibility.

Systematic Review Registration

Open Science Framework doi: 10.17605/OSF.IO/S849R.

Treatment for alcohol use disorder among persons with and without HIV in a clinical care setting in the United States

BACKGROUND

Alcohol use disorders (AUD) can lead to poor health outcomes. Little is known about AUD treatment among persons with HIV (PWH). In an integrated health system in Northern California, 2014-2017, we compared AUD treatment rates between PWH with AUD and persons without HIV (PWoH) with AUD.

METHODS

Using Poisson regression with GEE, we estimated prevalence ratios (PRs) comparing the annual probability of receiving AUD treatment (behavioral intervention or dispensed medication), adjusted for sociodemographics, psychiatric comorbidities, insurance type, and calendar year. Among PWH, we examined independent AUD treatment predictors using PRs adjusted for calendar year only.

RESULTS

PWH with AUD (N = 633; 93% men, median age 49) were likelier than PWoH with AUD (N = 7006; 95% men, median age 52) to have depression (38% vs. 21%) and a non-alcohol substance use disorder (SUD, 48% vs. 25%) (both P < 0.01). Annual probabilities of receiving AUD treatment were 45.4% for PWH and 34.4% for PWoH. After adjusting, there was no difference by HIV status (PR 1.02 [95% CI 0.94-1.11]; P = 0.61). Of treated PWH, 59% received only a behavioral intervention, 5% only a medication, and 36% both, vs. 67%, 4%, 30% for treated PWoH, respectively. Irrespective of HIV status, the most common medication was gabapentin. Among PWH, receiving AUD treatment was associated with having depression (PR 1.78 [1.51-2.10]; P < 0.01) and another SUD (PR 2.68 [2.20-3.27]; P < 0.01).

CONCLUSIONS

PWH with AUD had higher AUD treatment rates than PWoH with AUD in unadjusted but not adjusted analyses, which may be explained by higher psychiatric comorbidity burden among PWH.

Trends in the Use of Naltrexone for Addiction Treatment among Alcohol Use Disorder Admissions in U.S. Substance Use Treatment Facilities

Background: Naltrexone, a medication for addiction treatment (MAT), is an FDA-approved medication recommended for the treatment of alcohol use disorder (AUD). Despite the high prevalence of AUD and efficacy of naltrexone, only a small percentage of individuals with AUD receive treatment. Objectives: To identify trends for the prescription of naltrexone in AUD admissions in substance use treatment centers across the U.S. Methods: Data from the 2000–2018 U.S. Treatment Episode Data Set: Admissions (TEDS-A) were used in temporal trend analysis of naltrexone prescription in admissions that only used alcohol. Data from the 2019 National Survey of Substance Abuse Treatment Services (N-SSATS) were also used to characterize medication use among AUD clients across different treatment service settings. Results: Treatment of AUD with naltrexone was 0.49% in 2000 and tripled from 0.53% in 2015 to 1.64% in 2018 in AUD admissions (p < 0.0001 for the Cochran–Armitage trend test). Women, middle-aged adults, and admissions for clients living in the Northeast U.S. were more likely to be prescribed naltrexone than their respective counterparts, as were admissions with prior treatment episodes and referrals through alcohol/drug use care providers, who paid for treatment primarily through private insurance, used alcohol daily in the month prior to admission, and waited 1–7 days to enter treatment. Naltrexone was more commonly prescribed by AUD admissions compared to acamprosate and disulfiram and was more frequently prescribed in residential and outpatient services as opposed to hospital inpatient services. Conclusions: Naltrexone remains underutilized for AUD, and factors that influence prescription of medication are multifaceted. This study may contribute to the creation of effective interventions aimed at reducing naltrexone disparities for AUD.

Monitoring and Improving Naltrexone Adherence in Patients with Substance Use Disorder

OBJECTIVE

Naltrexone is an opioid antagonist used for the treatment of patients with opioid use disorder and alcohol use disorder. This population often presents problems of follow-up and therapeutic efficacy related to adherence to treatment. The purpose of our study is to provide an exhaustive summary of the current evidence regarding naltrexone adherence in people with substance use disorders and to identify possible variables that may influence adherence to naltrexone.

METHODS

Two searches were performed in bibliographic databases (PubMed, Embase), and studies included in the systematic review were those published from January 1, 2011 to September 2020, with participants over 18 years of age, evaluating treatment with naltrexone in alcohol use disorder and opioid use disorder. From the total of 133 articles initially selected, 36 were included and analyzed in the systematic review.

RESULTS

Naltrexone has not demonstrated superiority over other available treatments in terms of adherence and abstinence, although reinforcement systems have obtained favorable results as an additional strategy to improve adherence.

CONCLUSION

It is necessary to study other psychosocial variables involved in improving adherence, in addition to taking patient preferences into account in order to improve the external validity of the results.

Endogenous Opiates and Behavior: 2018

This paper is the forty-first consecutive installment of the annual anthological review of research concerning the endogenous opioid system, summarizing articles published during 2018 that studied the behavioral effects of molecular, pharmacological and genetic manipulation of opioid peptides and receptors as well as effects of opioid/opiate agonists and antagonists. The review is subdivided into the following specific topics: molecular-biochemical effects and neurochemical localization studies of endogenous opioids and their receptors (2), the roles of these opioid peptides and receptors in pain and analgesia in animals (3) and humans (4), opioid-sensitive and opioid-insensitive effects of nonopioid analgesics (5), opioid peptide and receptor involvement in tolerance and dependence (6), stress and social status (7), learning and memory (8), eating and drinking (9), drug abuse and alcohol (10), sexual activity and hormones, pregnancy, development and endocrinology (11), mental illness and mood (12), seizures and neurologic disorders (13), electrical-related activity and neurophysiology (14), general activity and locomotion (15), gastrointestinal, renal and hepatic functions (16), cardiovascular responses (17), respiration and thermoregulation (18), and immunological responses (19).

Differences in Receipt of Alcohol-Related Care Across Rurality Among VA Patients Living With HIV With Unhealthy Alcohol Use

PURPOSE

It is unknown whether receipt of evidence-based alcohol-related care varies by rurality among people living with HIV (PLWH) with unhealthy alcohol use-a population for whom such care is particularly important.

METHODS

All positive screens for unhealthy alcohol use (AUDIT-C ≥ 5) among PLWH were identified using Veterans Health Administration electronic health record data (10/1/09-5/30/13). Three domains of alcohol-related care were assessed: brief intervention (BI) within 14 days, and specialty addictions treatment or alcohol use disorder (AUD) medications (filled prescription for naltrexone, disulfiram, acamprosate, or topiramate) within 1 year of positive screen. Adjusted Poisson models and recycled predictions were used to estimate predicted prevalence of outcomes across rurality (urban, large rural, small rural), clustered on facility. Secondary analyses assessed outcomes in the subsample with documented AUD.

FINDINGS

4,581 positive screens representing 3,458 PLWH (3,112 urban, 130 large rural, and 216 small rural) were included; 49.1% had diagnosed AUD. PLWH in large rural areas had highest receipt of BI (urban 56.6%, 95% CI: 55.0-58.2; large rural 66.0%, CI: 58.6-73.5; small rural 60.7%, CI: 54.6-67.0). PLWH in urban areas had highest receipt of specialty addictions treatment (urban 28.2%, CI: 26.7-29.8; large rural 19.7%, CI: 13.1-26.2; small rural 19.6%, CI: 14.1-25.0). There was no difference in receipt of AUD medications, although overall receipt was low (3%-4%). Results were similar in the subsample with AUD.

CONCLUSION

Among PLWH with unhealthy alcohol use, those in rural areas may be vulnerable to under-receipt of specialty addictions treatment. Targeted interventions may help ensure PLWH receive recommended care regardless of rurality.

Integrated stepped alcohol treatment for patients with HIV and alcohol use disorder: a randomised controlled trial

BACKGROUND

We examined the effectiveness of integrated stepped alcohol treatment (ISAT) on alcohol use and HIV outcomes among patients living with HIV and alcohol use disorder.

METHODS

In this multisite, randomised controlled trial, conducted in five Veterans Affairs-based HIV clinics in the USA (Atlanta, GA; Brooklyn-Manhattan, NY; Dallas and Houston, TX; and Washington, DC), we recruited people living with HIV and an alcohol use disorder who were not otherwise receiving formal alcohol treatment. Patients were eligible if they were aged 18 years or older, HIV positive, English speaking, and met criteria for alcohol use disorder by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders-IV criteria for alcohol abuse or dependence. Key exclusion criteria included if the patient was acutely suicidal or had a psychiatric condition that affected their ability to participate in counselling interventions, or if they had any medical conditions that would preclude completing the study or cause harm during the course of the study. Using a web-based clinical trial management system, we randomly assigned participants (1:1) to receive ISAT or treatment as usual; patients, investigators, and clinicians were unmasked to allocation. ISAT involved three steps: step 1, addiction physician management, comprising eight sessions; step 2, addiction physician management plus motivational enhancement therapy, comprising four sessions; and step 3, specialty referral. Participants were stepped up at weeks 4 and 12 if they exceeded a priori drinking criteria. Treatment as usual involved referral to substance use treatment services. The primary outcome was number of drinks per week over the past 30 days at week 24 by use of the timeline followback method, assessed in the intention-to-treat population. Adverse events were tracked throughout the study period in all randomly assigned participants. This trial is registered at ClinicalTrials.gov, number NCT01410123.

FINDINGS

Between Jan 28, 2013, and July 14, 2017, 128 of 351 patients assessed for eligibility were eligible and randomly assigned to receive ISAT (n=63) or treatment as usual (n=65). Mean age was 54 years (range 23-70), 125 (98%) of 128 participants were men, and 101 (79%) were black. 25 (20%) were lost to follow-up. In the ISAT group, of 57 participants who did not die or withdraw, 30 (52%) advanced to step 2, and 17 (57%) of 30 advanced to step 3. 32 (51%) of 63 participants assigned to ISAT versus 17 (26%) of 65 assigned to treatment as usual received at least one alcohol treatment medication (p=0·004). Participants in both groups decreased their alcohol consumption, but at week 24 we did not detect a difference in number of drinks per week between the groups (least squares mean 10·4 drinks per week [SD 16·5] in the ISAT group vs 15·6 drinks per week [SD 17·6] in the treatment as usual group; adjusted mean difference -4·2, 95% CI -9·4 to 0·9; p=0·11). One adverse event occurred that was possibly related to treatment occurred in the ISAT group (headache).

INTERPRETATION

ISAT increases the receipt of alcohol treatment medications and counselling without changes in drinking at week 24. Strategies to implement and enhance ISAT are needed. Future efforts should focus on promoting ISAT with attention to enhancing patient engagement and retention in alcohol-related care.

FUNDING

US National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

Efficacy of Extended-Release Naltrexone on HIV-Related and Drinking Outcomes Among HIV-Positive Patients: A Randomized-Controlled Trial

We sought to test the efficacy of extended-release naltrexone (XR-NTX) on HIV-related and drinking outcomes. From April 2011-February 2015, we conducted a 4-site randomized double-blind placebo controlled clinical trial involving 51 HIV-positive patients with heavy drinking and < 95% antiretroviral (ART) adherence. All participants received counseling. The primary outcome was proportion with ≥ 95% ART adherence. Secondary outcomes included HIV biomarkers, VACS Index score, and past 30-day heavy drinking days. Based on receipt of ≥ 5 injections, 23 participants were retained at 24 weeks. We did not detect an effect of XR-NTX on ART adherence (p = 0.38); undetectable HIV viral load (p = 0.26); CD4 cell count (p = 0.75) or VACS Index score (p = 0.70). XR-NTX was associated with fewer heavy drinking days (p = 0.03). While XR-NTX decreases heavy drinking days, we did not detect improvements in ART adherence or HIV outcomes. Strategies to improve retention in alcohol treatment and HIV-related outcomes among heavy drinking HIV-positive patients are needed.

Survey of Treatment Preferences for Opioid Use Disorder

OBJECTIVES

This study gathered preliminary information on the initial feasibility of using injection Naltrexone (NTX) therapy in opioid users.

METHODS

One hundred opioid users (36% female, 8% minorities, mean age 34.5±11.4 yrs.) undergoing a health screen to determine initial eligibility for an ongoing study completed the survey.

RESULTS

Of the 100 respondents, 26, 16, 16, 1 and 0 reported prior treatment episodes of opioid detoxification, buprenorphine (BUP), methadone (MTD), oral NTX and injection NTX, respectively. Ninety and 71% were interested in participating in a study involving oral and/or injection NTX treatment, respectively. Reasons for not wanting to try injection NTX included fear of needles (n=13), side effects (n=7), lack of pain relief (n=12) and cost (n=3). A significantly higher percentage of those interested in injection NTX had episodes of prior opioid agonist maintenance treatment relative to those uninterested (32.4% vs 10.3%; Chi²=5.2, p<0.03). Those preferring injection NTX therapy showed a higher level of interest in this therapy (3.08±1.01 vs 1.62±1.35; Rank Sum p<0.0001) and a lower degree of interest in BUP treatment (2.96±0.93 vs 3.38±0.90; Rank Sum p< 0.03) than those not preferring injection NTX.

CONCLUSIONS

These preliminary results suggest that those with prior, failed experience with opioid agonist maintenance treatment are more likely to consider injection NTX therapy, suggesting it may be optimal as a second-line treatment for OUD.