Research conducted by Inflexxion, a provider of scientifically-based interactive technology solutions supporting behavioural changes for reducing health risks, delivers increased insight over prevention efforts and intervention strategies for bringing down prescription opioid abuse within a diverse and large group of adults undergoing treatment for substance abuse. Data for the research study were compiled from DWI and public assistance programs, substance abuse treatment and criminal justice programs which helped in establishing four clear subgroups among users of opioid.

Users were grouped under: prescription users (18.9 percent), prescription misusers (26.9 percent), illicit users (35.8 percent) and healthy abusers of opioid (18.4 percent). Out of the four subgroups, three groups expressed a high potential risk of fatal opioid overdose while 18.4 percent could be at high risk for contacting blood-borne infections.

The study carried out by Inflexxion helped in identifying multiple and distinct profiles of users of prescription opioid. This helped in clearing the ambiguity of studying individuals under the two obvious groups of users of opioid who report substance abuse and those who do not. In most instances it was also found that non-medical prescription opioid use was in conjunction with abuse of other substances. To tackle the increase in health related risks, the public health approach should ideally include supply and demand reduction, and should effectively provide harm reduction treatments while supporting the importance of staging interventions at both individual and structural levels. 

 In a release, Traci C. Green, MSc , PhD, Assistant Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology at The Warren Alpert School of Medicine of Brown University and Rhode Island Hospital, said, “As a population, non-medical prescription opioid users are not well-defined. We wanted to better understand who is using prescription opioids and whether we could detect subgroups of non-medical use. Previous studies have focused on various demographic groups of non-medical prescription opioid users. These populations may differ drastically in important ways, including route(s) of administration of the prescription opioid, concurrent drug and alcohol use, treatment experience, and history of substance abuse dependence, among others. Such variability makes it difficult for public health statistics to make general statements about non-medical prescription opioid users. But this is an even bigger challenge for clinicians and policy makers, who are faced with the challenge of focusing prevention, screening, intervention, and treatment strategies to address non-medical prescription opioid use in a way that prioritizes individuals at high risk of harm and poor health outcomes, without a clear sense of the nature of the disparate populations that may be involved.”