Preventing Opioid Overdose Deaths by Empowering Pharmacists to Dispense Naloxone

Auburn University

Status: Completed

Conditions: Opioid Overdose

Treatments: Behavioral: Resources; Behavioral: Educational Webinar; Behavioral: Reminders

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other; Other U.S. Federal agency

Identifiers

NCT05093309

R36HS026669-01A1

Details and patient eligibility

About

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).

Enrollment: 55 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Registered pharmacists.
• Employed at least 30 hours per week at a community pharmacy.
• Employed at a community pharmacy located in one of 20 Alabama priority counties with the highest opioid overdose mortality rates.

Exclusion criteria

• Multiple pharmacists from the same pharmacy site.
• Members of the stakeholder panel (from the formative phase of the study).

Trial design

Primary purpose: Health Services Research

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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55 participants in 2 patient groups

Intervention

Experimental group

Description:

The intervention group received naloxone resources + monthly reminders + educational webinar.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Reminders

Behavioral: Educational Webinar

Behavioral: Resources

Control

No Intervention group

Description:

The control group received naloxone resources + monthly reminders + delayed educational webinar (after the 3-month study period).