Smartphone app enhances retention and reduces opioid use in sufferers

Sufferers with opioid use dysfunction can scale back their days of opioid use and keep in remedy longer when utilizing a smartphone app as supportive remedy together with remedy, a brand new research by The College of Texas Well being Science Heart at San Antonio (UT Well being San Antonio) reveals.

The cohort research of 600 underserved sufferers discovered that those that selected to make use of the app – which mixes contingency administration behavioral remedy and restoration help from friends – and alongside remedy, diminished their days of opioid use by 35% in contrast with these handled with remedy solely. Moreover, app customers remained in remedy almost 19% longer than these handled with remedy alone.

 These findings recommend that augmenting remedy for opioid use dysfunction with app-based contingency administration could present scientific advantages for underserved sufferers. Increasing the provision of app-based contingency administration could contribute to lowering the immense societal, financial and private burden of opioid use.”

Elise Marino, PhD, director of analysis operations at UT Well being San Antonio’s Be Properly Institute on Substance Use and Associated Issues

Marino is lead writer of the research, titled, “Smartphone App-Primarily based Contingency Administration and Opioid Use Dysfunction Therapy Outcomes,” revealed Dec. 2 in JAMA Community Open. The opposite authors are also with UT Well being San Antonio’s Division of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and the Be Properly Institute.

A necessity to reinforce remedy

Opioid use dysfunction continues to be a nationwide disaster, contributing to substantial morbidity and mortality. Its annual societal value in the US hit $968.9 billion in 2018, the research notes.

Medicine for opioid use dysfunction, or MOUD – together with methadone, buprenorphine and naltrexone – is acknowledged as the one evidence-based remedy for the situation. This primary-line remedy has been proven to considerably lower opioid-related morbidity and mortality, and with constant cost-saving advantages.

Nevertheless, some sufferers nonetheless expertise difficulties decreasing opioid use and staying with their remedy, pointing to a necessity to reinforce MOUD. Many situations profit from twin remedy of remedy and remedy. One remedy is contingency administration, or CM, which supplies monetary incentives for carrying out remedy targets.

This remedy historically has been delivered in clinics, with the purpose of an opioid-negative discovering from urine drug screens. Whereas findings have been combined, a number of critiques and research have discovered that people handled with MOUD plus CM had higher retention and fewer opioid-positive outcomes from urine drug screens.

A protracted-standing limitation, nonetheless, is that sufferers are required to attend a number of in-person appointments per week for the remedy. With the latest COVID-19 pandemic, many had been unwilling to make in-person CM visits. Further entry obstacles, similar to transportation, distance from the clinic and arranging youngster care, have supported different choices like telehealth and leveraging new applied sciences.

There’s an app

One such expertise is the WEconnect Well being CM smartphone app. The app delivers evidence-based CM embedded in a recovery-oriented framework. Along with offering substance-related behavioral targets, it permits sufferers to set each day targets which are personally significant, each substance use-related and in any other case, like attending a Narcotics Nameless assembly, going for a stroll or studying.

The app additionally features a platform for monitoring sufferers’ progress and fee, and supplies encouragement for finishing their each day targets. Moreover, WEconnect gives 1-to-1 peer help and on-line conferences facilitated by licensed friends. In distinction to conventional CM, the app permits sufferers to make choices concerning their very own targets for remedy and to discover restoration via peer help companies obtainable wherever and accessible exterior of regular clinic hours.

For the brand new analysis, the scientists got down to consider whether or not augmenting MOUD with app-based CM is related to fewer days of opioid use on the finish of remedy and better retention than remedy with MOUD solely.

The retrospective cohort research, which refers to analysis that follows a gaggle of individuals over time, used information from Nov.1, 2020, to Nov. 30, 2023, collected from opioid remedy applications throughout Texas. The cohort included 600 people aged 18 years or older who had been uninsured or underinsured and who selected to obtain MOUD solely or MOUD plus CM delivered by the WEconnect smartphone app.

Those that selected to obtain MOUD plus app-based CM reported a imply period of 8.4 days of opioid use on the finish of remedy in contrast with 12 days for individuals who selected to obtain MOUD solely. Retention evaluation confirmed that sufferers who selected to obtain MOUD plus app-based CM stayed with their remedy for a imply period of 290.2 days, in contrast with 236.1 days for these selecting to obtain MOUD solely.

“These outcomes are promising, and so they spotlight the potential significance of a affected person’s choice to make use of app-based CM,” the researchers concluded. “Regardless of the challenges of participating sufferers in different app-based interventions, including recovery-oriented, app-based CM could also be one option to improve scientific care and meet the rising wants of traditionally underserved sufferers taking MOUD.”