Addiction medicine

About: Addiction medicine is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 1070 publications have been published within this topic receiving 23685 citations.

The homeless and sexual addiction

Abstract: Recovering alcoholics and drug addicts are beginning to realize that untreated sexual addiction can result in relapse. The subject is now becoming not so taboo among the recovering community. Many people are entering treatment specifically for sexual addiction, some after many years of recovery from other addictions. Even more promising are the people who are entering treatment for sexual addiction as their first treatment experience. This tells us that in the last decade, 12-step groups, such as SLAA (Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous), SA (Sexaholics Anonymous), and so on, combined with the research and publications of individuals such as Patrick Games, not only are becoming noticed but also have made a significant impact on the opinions of doctors, therapists, and counselors alike. Even though we have made significant strides in this area, we have missed a segment of the recovering community: individuals who are homeless, who are coming from the criminal justice system, or who have had multiple t...

Educating Nurses on the Use of the Clinical Opiate Withdrawal Scale to Improve Care of Adult Patients Undergoing Buprenorphine Induction

Abstract: Introduction Opioid addiction disease has become a global health and social problem complicated by drug misuse and abuse (Pearlman, 2016; Rettig & Yarmolinsky, 1995; Watkins, 2016). Buprenorphine, a partial opioid agonist, is an effective treatment for opioid addiction disease (Loreck et al., 2016). Its induction can trigger severe precipitated withdrawal in opioid-dependent patients whose mu receptors are occupied opioids (American Society of Addiction Medicine, 2015). Knowledge of assessing a patient's level of withdrawal using a validated tool is key to successful transition from other opioids to buprenorphine. Aim The aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of training nurses on the use of the Clinical Opioid Withdrawal Scale (COWS) screening instrument by assessing their confidence in assessing and satisfaction with communicating withdrawal information crucial for patient safety. Method Ten registered nurses and three nurse practitioners working at a mental health community service center completed two surveys at three time points (Pre, Post, and Post-90 days). The first survey measured nurses' confidence in assessing, whereas the second survey measured their satisfaction with communicating withdrawal symptoms. Results The means' (M) magnitude for both assessment and satisfaction scores increased with time (across Pre, Post, and Post-90). Standard deviations tended to become smaller. Improvements were noted in nurses' confidence in the assessment of and satisfaction in communicating withdrawal symptoms after the intervention. Conclusion Participants expressed increased knowledge, confidence, and satisfaction with the COWS screening instrument. Ultimately, the patients benefited from the participants having more experience, education, skills, and confidence in monitoring withdrawal symptoms depicted by aggregate data of COWS screenings postintervention.