Recent concern has focused on opioid use among youth, particularly non-medical use of pain relievers.
The usual treatment for opioid-addicted youth is short-term detoxification and individual or group therapy in residential or outpatiend settings over weeks or months. Although relapse is high using this approach, within the durg abuse treatment community, clinicians remain reluctant to use medication with opioid-addicted youth and young adults. This Blending product highlights the findings of the NIDA CTN study that compared longer term versus short-term buprenorphine/naloxone treatment in an outpatient setting. Primary results indicated that young adults in the longer term buprenorphine treatment were less likely to inject drugs or abuse opioids, cocaine, and marijuana, and were more likely to remain in treatment than those young adults who received short-term detoxification.
Articles
For additional resources highlighting research related to buprenorphine treatment for young adults, please see the "Other Resources" section.
For additional resources related to prescription drug abuse, please see the ATTC website, www.fightRXabuse.org.
