Addiction
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Prescription opioid overdose is a leading cause of injury-related morbidity and mortality in the United States. We aimed to identify characteristics associated with clinical severity in emergency department patients with prescription opioid overdose. ⋯ In emergency department patients in the United States with prescription opioid overdose, worse clinical severity was associated with opioid misuse, increased with age and was widely variable, depending on the specific opioid medication involved.
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Effective strategies are needed to address dramatic increases in hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection among people who inject drugs (PWID) in rural settings of the United States. We determined the required scale-up of HCV treatment with or without scale-up of HCV prevention interventions to achieve a 90% reduction in HCV chronic prevalence or incidence by 2025 and 2030 in a rural US setting. ⋯ Combined scale-up of hepatitis C virus treatment and prevention interventions is needed to decrease the increasing burden of hepatitis C virus incidence and prevalence in rural Indiana, USA, by 90% by 2025/30.
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Probability discounting refers to the effect of outcome uncertainty on decision making. Using probability discounting, we examined the degree to which self-identified chronic pain patients (CPP) were likely to try a novel analgesic medication given increasing addiction risk. We postulated that propensity for opioid misuse, trait impulsivity and previous opioid experience would be associated positively with likelihood of risky medication use. ⋯ In the United States, self-identified chronic pain patients (CPP) at higher risk for opioid misuse were more likely to report willingness to try a novel analgesic despite increasing addiction risk than CPP with low risk of opioid misuse.