ORLANDO — More than half of youth improved after receiving a dose of naloxone by emergency medical services (EMS) after an emergency dispatch call, according to research presented at the American Academy of Pediatrics 2024 National Conference.
“Emergency responders or EMS are often the first to arrive to an opioid poisoning, and they’re often the first to give naloxone, a potentially lifesaving medication,” said Christopher E. Gaw, MD, MPH, MBE, assistant professor of pediatrics at The Ohio State University College of Medicine and an emergency medicine physician at Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, Ohio.
Ohio State University
Dr. Christopher E. Gaw
“Our study highlights and underscores its safety of use in the prehospital setting, and this is also supported by other data,” Gaw said.
Additional research at the meeting showed that teens’ knowledge, attitudes, and confidence about recognizing overdoses and assisting with naloxone administration improved following a peer-to-peer training program, suggesting that teens can play an important role in reducing youth mortality from overdoses.
An average of 22 American teens died from overdose every week in 2022, and as counterfeit pill use has increased among youth, research has found that fentanyl was detected in 93% of overdose deaths with counterfeit pills, according to Talia Puzantian, PharmD, BCPP, of the Keck Graduate Institute School of Pharmacy, Claremont, California, who led the study on peer education. Yet a recent survey had found that less than a third of teens (30%) knew what naloxone was, and only 14% knew how to administer it.
“Ensuring that adolescents have easy and confidential access to naloxone is important and can save lives,” said Taylor Nichols, MD, assistant clinical professor at the University of California San Francisco and an emergency medicine and addiction medicine–certified physician. “I have had teen patients who have told me that they have had to use naloxone obtained from our clinic on friends when they have accidentally overdosed.”
University of California
Dr. Taylor Nichols
Nichols, who was not involved in either study, added that all 50 states have some version of Good Samaritan laws that offer protection to individuals who attempt to aid in emergency assistance in good faith, and all except Kansas and Wyoming have laws specifically protecting people trying to help with overdose prevention.
“I tell people that everyone should carry naloxone and have naloxone available to be able to reverse an overdose, whether they personally use opioids or know people who use opioids because if they happen to come into a situation in which someone is passed out and unresponsive, that timely administration of naloxone may save their life,” Nichols said.
He added that primary care physicians, “particularly in family medicine and pediatrics, should be asking about any opioids in the home prescribed to anyone else and ensure that those patients also are prescribed or have access to naloxone to keep at home. Just as with asking about any other potential safety hazards, making sure they have naloxone available is crucial.”