Abstract

Session presented on: Friday, July 26, 2013:

Purpose: Adequate drug treatment for substance users continues to be a challenge for most United States (US) cities. In order to address heroin addiction in Baltimore, the Baltimore Buprenorphine Initiative (BBI) was implemented as a joint project to promote individualized, patient-centered buprenorphine therapy in conjunction with behavioral treatment to accelerate recovery from opioid addiction.

Methods: The BBI sample consisted of 1,039 subjects treated with buprenorphine and counseling between January 1, 2008 and June 1, 2009. Demographic and outcome variables were evaluated against two comparison groups of 8,692 patients receiving methadone treatment and 6,664 patients receiving intensive outpatient or standard outpatient (IOP-OP) treatment. Analytical methods were utilized to assess each of the three treatment groups in order to measure the simultaneous impact of a set of variables on an individual's LOS.

Results: The BBI sample consisted of 1,039 subjects treated between January 1, 2008 and June 1, 2009. Using analysis of variance, statistically significant differences among the groups were identified in three areas: age, lapse of time until admission to treatment, and length of stay in treatment. Controlling for age, gender, education, race, income, and employment, the following independent variables were used to predict LOS: lapse of time to admission, ASI scores, number of addictions, frequency of addictions, and group membership (BBI, methadone, or IOP). Demographic characteristics accounted for 15.8 % of the variance (R2 = 0.158) with the overall model explaining 42.6% of the variance surrounding the dependent variable LOS (R2=0.426). The model was statistically significant (F=223.51, df 18, 5413, p<0.001).

Conclusion: The findings of this study have practical implications for the design and implementation of heroin addiction programs. The research indicates that focusing on these specific predictive variables early in the program design phase could increase recovery success rates as measured by length of stay.

Author Details

Lyn Stankiewicz Murphy, PhD, MBA, MS, RN; Marla T. Oros, MS, RN

Sigma Membership

Unknown

Type

Presentation

Format Type

Text-based Document

Study Design/Type

N/A

Research Approach

N/A

Keywords:

Heroin, Drug Addiction, Buprenorphine

Conference Name

24th International Nursing Research Congress

Conference Host

Sigma Theta Tau International

Conference Location

Prague, Czech Republic

Conference Year

2013

Rights Holder

All rights reserved by the author(s) and/or publisher(s) listed in this item record unless relinquished in whole or part by a rights notation or a Creative Commons License present in this item record.

All permission requests should be directed accordingly and not to the Sigma Repository.

All submitting authors or publishers have affirmed that when using material in their work where they do not own copyright, they have obtained permission of the copyright holder prior to submission and the rights holder has been acknowledged as necessary.

Acquisition

Proxy-submission

Share

COinS
 

The Baltimore Buprenorphine Initiative: A comparison of treatment modalities for addressing heroin addiction in an urban-based community

Prague, Czech Republic

Session presented on: Friday, July 26, 2013:

Purpose: Adequate drug treatment for substance users continues to be a challenge for most United States (US) cities. In order to address heroin addiction in Baltimore, the Baltimore Buprenorphine Initiative (BBI) was implemented as a joint project to promote individualized, patient-centered buprenorphine therapy in conjunction with behavioral treatment to accelerate recovery from opioid addiction.

Methods: The BBI sample consisted of 1,039 subjects treated with buprenorphine and counseling between January 1, 2008 and June 1, 2009. Demographic and outcome variables were evaluated against two comparison groups of 8,692 patients receiving methadone treatment and 6,664 patients receiving intensive outpatient or standard outpatient (IOP-OP) treatment. Analytical methods were utilized to assess each of the three treatment groups in order to measure the simultaneous impact of a set of variables on an individual's LOS.

Results: The BBI sample consisted of 1,039 subjects treated between January 1, 2008 and June 1, 2009. Using analysis of variance, statistically significant differences among the groups were identified in three areas: age, lapse of time until admission to treatment, and length of stay in treatment. Controlling for age, gender, education, race, income, and employment, the following independent variables were used to predict LOS: lapse of time to admission, ASI scores, number of addictions, frequency of addictions, and group membership (BBI, methadone, or IOP). Demographic characteristics accounted for 15.8 % of the variance (R2 = 0.158) with the overall model explaining 42.6% of the variance surrounding the dependent variable LOS (R2=0.426). The model was statistically significant (F=223.51, df 18, 5413, p<0.001).

Conclusion: The findings of this study have practical implications for the design and implementation of heroin addiction programs. The research indicates that focusing on these specific predictive variables early in the program design phase could increase recovery success rates as measured by length of stay.