Medications like methadone and buprenorphine have become the gold standard for treating opioid use disorder (OUD). But many people with OUD still receive
The study, led by Yale researchers, analyzed data from 965 people who died from an opioid-involved overdose in 2017. While previous research has compared abstinence-only treatment with medication-based treatments, this study is the first to compare the two paths with no treatment at all.
The results determined that medications for OUD significantly reduced the risk of death — by 38% for methadone and 34% for buprenorphine.
People who received treatment that did not utilize medications (abstinence-based therapy) were 1.2 to 1.7 times more likely to die than those who were exposed to no treatment at all.
3·1 year ago