Patients who are addicted to opioids tend to seek medical care in hospital emergency departments (EDs), and these individuals usually receive addiction treatment, Yale University reported.

"ED physicians take care of the immediate concern, but don't treat the underlying problem," said first author Dr. Gail D'Onofrio, chair of emergency medicine at Yale School of Medicine.

To test the success of certain interventions, a team of researchers conducted a randomized trial of over 300 opioid-dependent patients at an urban teaching hospital.

"Prior research at Yale has demonstrated that buprenorphine treatment is highly effective in primary care, and this study was designed in part to expand the reach of this treatment to this critical ED patient population," said Dr. Patrick O'Connor, professor of medicine and chief of general internal medicine at Yale School of Medicine.

The study participants were randomly split into three groups: a referral group that received a list of treatment services; a brief intervention group that received consultation; and a group given the craving-reducing drug buprenorphine and also received intervention.

 "The patients who received ED-initiated medication and referral for ongoing treatment in primary care were twice as likely than the others to be engaged in treatment 30 days later," D'Onofrio said. "They were less likely to use illicit opioids of any kind."

The researchers noted that the findings should be confirmed in future studies, but the finding highlights potential successful strategies to reduce opioid abuse.  

"Effectively linking ED-initiated buprenorphine treatment to ongoing treatment in primary care represents an exciting new model for engaging patients who are dependent on opioids into state-of-the-art care," O'Connor concluded.

The findings were reported in a recent edition of JAMA.