ArticleThe International journal on drug policy2022
Methadone and buprenorphine-related deaths among people prescribed and not prescribed Opioid Agonist Therapy during the COVID-19 pandemic in England.
Article in The International journal on drug policy, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 28 citations in OpenAlex.
- Evidence-based consensus guidelines for the pharmacological management of substance dependence: Recommendations from the British Association for Psychopharmacology.Journal of psychopharmacology (Oxford, England) · 2026Guideline
- Examining inequities in access to opioid agonist treatment (OAT) take-home doses (THD): A Canadian OAT guideline synthesis and systematic review.The International journal on drug policy · 2024Pooled it
- The impact of relaxing restrictions on take-home doses during the COVID-19 pandemic on program effectiveness and client experiences in opioid agonist treatment: a mixed methods systematic review.Substance abuse treatment, prevention, and policy · 2023Pooled it
- Impact of COVID-19 lockdown on methadone and buprenorphine prescriptions in England primary cares: an interrupted time series analysis.Harm reduction journal · 2025Article
- Understanding the use of telemedicine across different opioid use disorder treatment models: A scoping review.Journal of telemedicine and telecare · 2025Article
- Impact of 'street' benzodiazepines on drug-related deaths in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.Drug and alcohol review · 2025Article
- Non-Prescribed Use of Opioid Agonist Medications and Associations with Non-Fatal Overdoses: A Repeated Cross-Sectional Study across a Decade of Reduced Monitoring.European addiction research · 2025Article
- Impact of guidance issued during COVID-19 to expand take-home doses of opioid agonist treatment (OAT) in Ireland: protocol for a population-based analysis of prescribing practices and patient outcomes 2018 to 2023.HRB open research · 2025Article
- "Tethered to this ball and chain": Women's perspectives on bodily agency within opioid treatment programs.The International journal on drug policy · 2024Article
- Giving Up the Guidelines: A Qualitative Evaluation of Disrupted Prescribing of Opioid Substitution Therapy in a Rural UK County During and Following the COVID-19 Pandemic.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2024Article
- Buprenorphine deaths confirmed by toxicology reveal a low proportion of opioid agonist treatment before death in Finland.International journal of legal medicine · 2024Article
- Estimated effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of opioid use disorder treatment under proposed U.S. regulatory relaxations: A model-based analysis.Drug and alcohol dependence · 2024Article
- Flexible delivery of opioid agonist treatment during COVID-19 in Norway: qualitative and quantitative findings from an online survey of provider experiences.BMC health services research · 2023Article
- "Safe Supply" Initiatives: Are They a Recipe for Harm Through Reduced Health Care Input and Supply-Induced Toxicity and Overdose?Journal of studies on alcohol and drugs · 2023Article
- Eliminate the buprenorphine DEA X waiver: Justification using a policy analysis approach.Journal of nursing scholarship : an official publication of Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing · 2023Article
- Article
- Should I Stay or Should I Go? A Qualitative Exploration of Stigma and Other Factors Influencing Opioid Agonist Treatment Journeys.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- Substance use disorders and COVID-19: reflections on international research and practice changes during the "poly-crisis".Frontiers in public health · 2023Article
- Trends in deaths following drug use in England before, during, and after the COVID-19 lockdowns.Frontiers in public health · 2023Article
- Understanding and learning from rural drug service adaptations to opioid substitution therapy during the COVID-19 pandemic: the What C-OST? study.Frontiers in public health · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors at 2 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundThe coronavirus pandemic resulted in many changes which had the potential to impact mortality related to opioid agonist therapy (OAT; methadone, buprenorphine), including changes in the prescribing and dispensing of OAT and patterns of drug availability and use. We aimed to assess the impact of the first lockdown (initiated March 23rd 2020) on methadone- and buprenorphine-related deaths in England in people both prescribed and not prescribed OAT using data from the National Programme on Substance Abuse Deaths.
methodsThis was a retrospective post-mortem toxicology study of OAT-related deaths which occurred in the 3-month period March 23rd to June 22nd in the years 2016-2020. Provisional data regarding numbers accessing treatment for opioid use disorder was provided by the National Drug Treatment Monitoring System.
resultsWe found a 64% increase in methadone-related deaths in March to June 2020 compared to March to June 2019 (2019 n = 96; 2020 projected n = 157). There were increases in the mortality rate of both in-treatment decedents (22% increase; 2019 n = 45; an exponential smoothing model of the 2016-19 trend [α=0.5] predicted 44 deaths in 2020, 55 were reported) and decedents not prescribed methadone (74% increase; 2019 n = 46; 2016-19 trend predicted 43 deaths in 2020, 80 were reported). There was no increase in buprenorphine-related deaths (2019 n = 9/529; 2020 n = 11/566). There were no changes in the numbers of deaths where other opioids or multiple substances were detected, or in methadone levels detected. Numbers of people accessing treatment for opioid use disorder in 2020 did not decrease relative to previous years (p >0.05).
conclusionsMethadone-related deaths in non-prescribed individuals, but not prescribed individuals, increased considerably above the annual trend forecast for 2020 during the first COVID-19 lockdown in England. Further studies are thus needed to understand this difference.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What Socratic holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.