Take-home naloxone in Australia and beyond

June 2018
Citation: 
Olsen, A., Dwyer, R. and Lenton, S. (2018). Editorial: Take-home naloxone in Australia and beyond. Drug and Alcohol Review, 37, (4), pp. 437-439. DOI: 10.1111/dar.12700.

This editorial introduces a special section of Drug and Alcohol Review focusing on take-home naloxone. In this special section, naloxone guest editors Anna Olsen, Robyn Dwyer and Simon Lenton curate a collection of new research on take-home naloxone spanning a variety of issues in contemporary take-home naloxone policy, practice and research. The guest editors have gathered together articles that they feel provide novel evidence on the implementation and effectiveness of take-home naloxone programs, contributing to the global quest for evidence-based take-home naloxone policy. Many of the articles analyse original data from the region, reflecting the fact that Australia is one of the newest countries to implement take-home naloxone programs. The articles included in the special section are as follows:

Olsen, A., Dwyer, R. and Lenton, S. (2018). Editorial: Take-home naloxone in Australia and beyond. Drug and Alcohol Review, 37, (4), pp. 437-439. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/dar.12700

Dwyer, R., Olsen, A., Fowlie, C., Gough, C., van Beek, I., Jauncey, M., Lintzeris, N., Oh, G., Dicka, J., Fry, C., Hayllar, J. and Lenton, S. (2018). An overview of take-home naloxone programs in Australia. Drug and Alcohol Review, 37, (4), pp. 440-449. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/dar.12812

Pricolo, A. and Nielsen, S. (2018) Naloxone rescheduling in Australia: Processes, implementation and challenges with supply of naloxone as a ‘pharmacist only’ over-the-counter medicine. Drug and Alcohol Review, 37, (4), pp. 450-453. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/dar.12547

Horsburgh, K. and McAuley, A. (2018) Scotland’s national naloxone program: The prison experience. Drug and Alcohol Review, 37, (4), pp. 454-456. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/dar.12542

Dietze, P., Stare, M., Cogger, S., Nambiar, D., Olsen, A., Burns, L. and Lenton, S. (2018). Knowledge of naloxone and take-home naloxone programs among a sample of people who inject drugs in Australia: Variations across capital cities. Drug and Alcohol Review, 37, (4), pp. 457-463. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/dar.12644

Chronister, K.J., Lintzeris, N., Jackson, A., Ivan, M., Dietze, P., Lenton, S., Kearley, J. and van Beek, I. (2018). Findings and lessons learnt from implementing Australia’s first health service based take-home naloxone program. Drug and Alcohol Review, 37, (4), pp. 464-471. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/dar.12400

Dietze, P., Draper, B., Olsen, A., Chronister, K.J., van Beek, I., Lintzeris, N., Dwyer, R., Nelson, M. and Lenton, S. (2018). Does training people to administer take-home naloxone increase their knowledge? Evidence from Australian programs. Drug and Alcohol Review, 37, (4), pp. 472-479. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/dar.12680

Bagley, S.M., Forman, L.S., Ruiz, S., Cranston, K. and Walley, A.Y. (2018) Expanding access to naloxone for family members: The Massachusetts experience. Drug and Alcohol Review, 37, (4), pp. 480-486. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/dar.12551

Meade, A.M., Bird, S.M., Strang, J., Pepple, T., Nichols, L.L., Mascarenhas, M., Choo, L. and Parmar, M.K.B. (2018) Methods for delivering the UK’s multi-centre prison-based naloxone-on-release pilot randomised trial (N-ALIVE): Europe’s largest prison-based randomised controlled trial. Drug and Alcohol Review, 37, (4), pp. 487-498. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/dar.12592

Olsen, A., McDonald, D., Lenton, S. and Dietze, P. (2018). Assessing causality in drug policy analyses: How useful are the Bradford Hill criteria in analyzing take-home naloxone programs? Drug and Alcohol Review, 37, (4), pp. 499-501. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/dar.12523