Opioid Overdose Education for Individuals Prescribed Opioids for Pain Management: Randomized Comparison of Two...

Opioid overdose (OD) rates in the United States have reached unprecedented levels. Current OD prevention strategies largely consist of distribution of naloxone and in-person trainings, which face obstacles to expedient, widespread dissemination. Web-based interventions have increased opioid-OD response knowledge in patients with opioid-use disorders; however, these interventions have not been tested in the larger population of individuals that are prescribed opioid analgesics. This study assessed a web-based intervention providing education across three knowledge domains: opioid effects, opioid-OD symptoms, and opioid-OD response.

Participants (N = 197) were adults recruited on Amazon Mechanical Turk from May to June 2017, who were prescribed an opioid medication for pain. Participants were randomly assigned to a Presentation (n = 97) intervention communicating relevant facts in each knowledge domain, or a Presentation + Mastery (n = 100) intervention including the same facts but requiring that participants respond correctly to ≥80% of embedded questions in each module before advancing. Participants completed the Brief Opioid Overdose Knowledge (BOOK) measure before and after the interventions, and provided feedback on acceptability.

Both versions of the intervention resulted in significant pre to postintervention increases in BOOK scores across all knowledge domains (p < 0.001), with no significant knowledge differences between groups. The Presentation intervention took significantly less time to complete (p < 0.001) and was completed by significantly more participants than the Presentation + Mastery intervention (p < 0.001). Most participants rated both interventions as highly acceptable.

Results replicate a previous study (1) and suggest the web-based Presentation intervention may be a convenient, cost-effective method for disseminating crucial public health information for preventing opioid OD.