Emergency Physicians and Opioid Overdoses: A Call to Aid

Benzodiazepines and cocaine as risk factors in fatal opioid overdoses

GHB Overdoses in the Emergency Department

Blood specimens from 146 suspected gamma.hydroxybutyrate (GHB) overdose cases, presenting to an emergency department in Washington State over a 12-month period, were analyzed for GHB and other drugs. Of these 146 patients, GHB was confirmed in approximately one-third of the patients (N = 54), sometimes in potentially toxic concentrations. These patients were aged between 17 and 59 years (median...

Medication Overdoses at a Public Emergency Department in Santiago, Chile

INTRODUCTION While a nationwide poison control registry exists in Chile, reporting to the center is sporadic and happens at the discretion of the treating physician or by patients' self-report. Moreover, individual hospitals do not monitor accidental or intentional poisoning in a systematic manner. The goal of this study was to identify all cases of intentional medication overdose (MO) that occ...

How do physicians adopt and apply opioid prescription guidelines in the emergency department? A qualitative study.

STUDY OBJECTIVE An increase in prescriptions for opioid pain medications has coincided with increasing opioid overdose deaths. Guidelines designed to optimize opioid prescriptions written in the emergency department have been implemented, with substantial controversy. Little is known about how physicians perceive and apply these guidelines. We seek to identify key themes about emergency physici...

Circumstances surrounding non‐fatal opioid overdoses attended by ambulance services

INTRODUCTION AND AIMS Opioid overdose fatalities are a significant concern globally. Non-fatal overdoses have been described as a strong predictor for future overdoses, and are often attended by the ambulance services. This paper explores characteristics associated with non-fatal overdoses and aims to identify possible trends among these events in an urban area in Norway. DESIGN AND METHODS T...