A scoping literature review of pharmacy-based opioid misuse screening and brief interventions

Although prescription opioid dispensing rates have continued to decrease, overdose deaths involving prescription opioids have increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. Screening and brief interventions (SBI) are an effective prevention strategy to identify and address opioid misuse and safety risks. Emerging literature on pharmacy-based SBI needs to be systematically appraised to develop robust interventions.

Our objective was to conduct a scoping review of the literature regarding pharmacy-based opioid misuse SBI to identify relevant literature that explore the topic, evaluate the patient-centeredness of included studies, and explore the use of dissemination and implementation science in the literature.

The review was conducted according to Preferred Reporting of Systematic Reviews and Meta-analyses -Scoping reviews (PRISMA-Sc) guidelines. We searched PubMed, CINHAL, PsychInfo, and Scopus for studies regarding pharmacy-based SBI, published in the last 20 years. We also conducted a separate grey literature search. Two of three total reviewers screened each abstract individually and identified eligible full-texts for inclusion. We critically appraised quality of included studies and qualitatively synthesized the relevant information.

The search resulted in 21 studies (categorized as intervention, descriptive, and observational research) and 3 grey literature reports. Of the recently published 21 studies, 11 were observational research, with six interventions in the pilot stages. Screening tools varied but naloxone was the brief intervention in 15 of the 24 results. Only eight studies had high validity, reliability, and applicability and only five were patient-centered. Implementation science principles were addressed in eight studies (mainly interventions). Overall, the findings suggest high potential for evidence-based SBI to be successful.

Overall, the review suggested a strong lack of a patient-centered and implementation science-focused approach to designing pharmacy-based opioid misuse SBI. Findings suggest that a patient-centered, implementation focused approach is needed for effective and sustained pharmacy-based opioid misuse SBI.