Citation

Moshkforoush M, Debeck K, Brar R, Fairbairn N, Cui Z, Milloy MJ, Buxton J, Oldenburger T, McLellan W, Kendall P, Sedgemore K, Wilson D, Kerr T, Hayashi K. Harm Reduct. J. 2022; 19(1): e50.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2022, Holtzbrinck Springer Nature Publishing Group - BMC)

DOI

10.1186/s12954-022-00632-6

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

When the novel coronavirus pandemic emerged in March 2020, many settings across Canada and the USA were already contending with an existing crisis of drug overdoses due to the toxic unregulated drug supply. In response, the Canadian province of British Columbia (BC) released innovative risk mitigation prescribing (RMP) guidelines for medical professionals to prescribe pharmaceutical alternatives to unregulated drugs in an effort to support the self-isolation of people who use unregulated drugs (PWUD) in preventing both SARS-CoV-2 virus infection and overdoses. We sought to assess the level of awareness of RMP and identify factors associated with this awareness among PWUD in Vancouver, BC.

Language: en

Keywords

COVID-19; Drug overdose; Harm reduction; Safe supply