Preventing Opioid Overdose Deaths by Empowering Pharmacists to Dispense Naloxone

Summary

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to assess the impact of the Empowering Community Pharmacists program on pharmacists' knowledge, perceived barriers, attitudes, confidence, and intentions regarding naloxone services implementation, as well as change in number of naloxone prescriptions dispensed.

Methods: A 3-month pragmatic randomized controlled trial was conducted in 2018-2019. Alabama community pharmacists were recruited by email, phone, fax, and mailed postcards and randomized to intervention (monthly resources/reminders + educational webinar) or control (monthly resources/reminders + delayed educational webinar). Outcome measures were assessed via online surveys at baseline (T1), immediately post-intervention (T2), and 3-months post-intervention (T3), including: naloxone knowledge (percent correct); perceived barriers, attitudes, and confidence regarding naloxone services implementation (7-point Likert-type scale, 1=strongly disagree to 7=strongly agree); and number of naloxone prescriptions dispensed. Mean differences between control and intervention groups from T1-T3 were assessed using two-way mixed ANOVA and adjusted analyses were conducted using generalized estimating equations (GEE) with negative binomial distribution (alpha=0.05).

Conditions

• Opioid Overdose

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Educational Webinar

At month 1 of the study period, the educational webinar was presented by expert speakers and consisted of 3 modules: 1) naloxone basics; 2) naloxone service implementation strategies; and 3) naloxone recommendation communication strategies. Participants were mailed naloxone nasal spray and auto-injector training devices prior to attending the online webinar so that they could follow along during demonstrations.

BEHAVIORAL

Resources

After completing the baseline survey, both control and intervention groups were provided with a basic publicly available flyer about naloxone dosage forms in order to ensure all participants could provide adequate patient care.

BEHAVIORAL

Reminders

Reminders consisted of monthly emails from investigators for the purpose of retaining study engagement.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)

  collaborator FED

• Auburn University

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Lindsey Hohmann, PharmD, PhD · Auburn University

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

HEALTH_SERVICES_RESEARCH

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2018-09-18

Primary Completion

2019-09-18

Completion

2019-09-18

Countries

• United States

Study Locations