Teens and Overdose

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Anchor lead: How are adolescents who overdose on opioids
treated? Elizabeth Tracey reports

When people experience a non-fatal opioid overdose treatment
to curb addiction and help them avoid recurrence is indicated, yet only a very
few adolescents receive such treatment. That’s according to research by Rachel
Alinsky, an adolescent medicine expert at Johns Hopkins.

Alinsky: We were looking at adolescents who were having
opioid overdoses are they receiving the recommended treatment after overdose
and unfortunately what I found is that less than one in fifty are getting the
standard of care medication treatment after overdose.  :14

Alinsky points to a need for greater awareness.

Alinsky: Youth are about one-tenth as likely to receive
treatment for opioid use disorder and when it comes to overdose specifically I
think there’s probably a lack of pediatric familiarity with how do we recognize
and treat opioid use disorder, it’s not typically thought of as a pediatric
disease although we’re seeing that it clearly does affect the pediatric
population.  :20

At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.