Category: From Newswise – Substance Abuse

Brief interventions can potentially reduce incarcerated women’s alcohol use when they leave jail, according to a new study. Researchers explored jailed women’s impressions of how their friends and acquaintances drank and used drugs (“social norms”). Research shows that people who perceive their friends drinking heavily are more likely to drink heavily themselves, while individuals who realize that their friends in fact drink moderately tend to reduce their own alcohol use. Often, perceptions of substance use in a social network are skewed. Past research on this phenomenon has focused on college students, with slight attention to people involved in the criminal justice system. Two in three incarcerated adults have a substance use disorder — compared to one in ten of the general population — and consequently may regard their own alcohol and drug use as typical. Substance use is strongly implicated in criminal justice involvement and reoffending, especially for women. This study in Alcoho

Systematic reviews and meta-analyses demonstrate that opioids fail to achieve important benefits beyond alternative interventions with less harm.

Penn Medicine researchers found that when an “Enhanced Recovery After Surgery” protocol was employed–which optimizes patients’ surgical care before, during, and after surgery–the majority of patients did not need opioids for pain management at one, three, and six months after elective spinal and peripheral nerve surgery.

Through monitoring and dosing guidelines, provider education and training and better alternatives for patient pain management, medical group reduces monthly average of written pain medicine prescriptions by 20 percent, while the number of providers within the medical group grew by 22 percent and the number of patients grew by 12 percent.

The study uses fMRI data to compare brain development between children who experience pervasive, continuing trauma and those with “normal” development.

In a new study, scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have identified a possible drug candidate that suppresses pain and itch in animal models.

While the daily dose of methadone for opiate addiction has declined in recent years, facilities run by African-American directors were more likely to provide low methadone doses than facilities run by managers of other races and ethnicities.

Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have developed a vaccine that blocks the pain-numbing effects of the opioid drugs oxycodone (oxy) and hydrocodone (hydro) in animal models.

Stefan Kertesz, M.D., says a better understanding of what caused and what sustains the opioid epidemic is needed among policymakers and physicians to best serve patients and address the crisis.