PopData is linking data for a study to investigate the long-term experiences and outcomes of injectable opioid agonist treatment (iOAT) clients to help us understand how iOAT can best be delivered as a treatment to support and assist people with opioid use disorder.
The study is lead by Eugenia Oviedo-Joekes, Assistant Professor in the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia and Centre for Health Evaluation and Outcomes (CHEOS) at St. Paul’s Hospital, Vancouver. Project funding comes from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the Canada Foundation for Innovation.
The BC Ministry of Mental Health and Addictions has called for the expansion of iOAT in regional health authorities across the Province. “To date, secondary analyses of iOAT randomized control trials have not focused on patient-level characteristics nor have they been powered to do so,” according to Professor Oviedo-Joekes. “The few that explored them have done so mostly with respect to their effect on the primary iOAT vs. methadone comparison and not within the iOAT arm itself.”
With numerous authorities calling for provision of iOAT in cities across Canada, the goal of this research is to investigate patient-level associations with treatment outcomes and to understand patient and provider factors that can inform program design to optimize uptake and effectiveness.
Study participants have been recruited from all existing iOAT sites in the Greater Vancouver Area and will be in the study for up to 18 months from the time of enrollment. The first wave of the study, the ‘First-visit’, began in August 2022 and was completed in April 2023. Two follow-up waves were initiated in February of 2023 and are intended to continue until approximately October 2024.
Six data sets from the BC Ministry of Health will be linked to Researcher-collected data from participant self-report questionnaires.
Findings will be disseminated to researchers through peer reviewed, publications and conference presentations. In order to reach key policy makers and health care practitioners, the research team will produce brief fact sheet documents summarizing finding in lay terms. These will be key to informing the ongoing expansion of services by providing a synthesis of real time findings relating to clients’ outcomes. These documents are meant to offer health policy makers a framework for widespread capacity building for this treatment, and provide useful and relevant insights and guidance for those planning and implementing iOAT programs in new settings. In addition, the project team have the support of and experience working with media relations experts within Providence Health Care and the University of British Columbia, to distribute its findings to the public.
