Association Between Increased Dispensing of Opioid Agonist Therapy Take-Home Doses and Opioid Overdose and Treatment Interruption and Discontinuation

Abstract

In Ontario, Canada, during the COVID-19 pandemic, dispensing of increased take-home doses of opioid agonist therapy was significantly associated with lower rates of treatment interruption and discontinuation among some subsets of patients receiving opioid agonist therapy, and there were no statistically significant increases in opioid-related overdoses over 6 months of follow-up. These findings may be susceptible to residual confounding and should be interpreted cautiously.