Living with chronic pain often requires using opioids, but these medications carry a serious risk of overdose. To help manage this risk, researchers tested an interactive "Opioid Safety Toolkit" designed to educate patients on how to stay safe while managing their pain.
In a study involving 314 adults in Australia, the group using the interactive toolkit showed much higher engagement with safety measures than those using a standard information website. Specifically, more people in the toolkit group reported wanting to get naloxone—a medication that can reverse an opioid overdose—and actually requested it four weeks later. They also scored higher on tests regarding their knowledge of how to prevent overdoses.
While the interactive tools were very effective at improving patient knowledge and intent to act, they did not change how often patients talked to their doctors about safety. Because the results relied on what patients reported themselves, there is some room for caution in the data, but the evidence suggests that tailored, interactive content is a strong way to reach people with these concerns.
