“They don’t get a lot of help, whether it’s education about the opioids they’re prescribed, counseling about their health problem, or their use of opioids.”
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Teens who must use opioids to deal with health problems say they lack the resources to allow their medications to be properly administered, a Canada-wide study has found.
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Health centers in Montreal, Toronto, Halifax, Calgary and Vancouver participated in the study, each examining a different group of young people who were affected by the health crisis and opioid overdoses.
In Montreal, the research group looked at opioid prescriptions, which is one of the historical factors that contributed to the crisis. They met with young people who are in remission from cancer, had scoliosis, or had an acute injury.
“We learned that this group doesn’t get a lot of help, whether it’s education about the opioids they’re prescribed, counseling about their health problem, or opioid use,” said doctoral student and research coordinator Stephanie. Nairn. “They face a dearth of pertinent information, or even general information, about the opioids they are prescribed.”
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Some of the teens had been dealing with health problems for a long period of time, Nairn said, making the lack of information, real or perceived, even more concerning.
Faced with this situation, young people rely on their own experiences or connect to the Internet to try to find information on how to manage their medication.
“They access YouTube to watch videos about opioid use,” Nairn said. “They get a lot of information from those channels.”
And even if teens have access to doctors and nurses who can answer their questions, they are unlikely to seek them out because conversations with health professionals almost always take place in the presence of a parent or guardian, and are not they feel like they are part of the conversation.
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The teens told the researchers they feel the double stigma of being sick and having to use opioids.
However, Nairn notes that previous studies have shown that even a single dose of opioids increases the chances of addiction and overdose, adding that “lack of information may exacerbate the situation.”
Opioid use among youth has had a devastating effect. Between 2000 and 2015, some provinces saw increases in deaths from opioid use among people ages 15 to 24. Between 2013 and 2017, opioid intoxication increased rapidly among youth ages 15 to 24 and adults ages 25 to 44.
A recent study from Ontario showed that the overdose rate among users under the age of 35 had increased by 320% during the early stages of the pandemic in 2020. However, the study found that most measures taken to combat abuse of opioids are targeted at adults and men, as statistics through the mid-2000s suggested the problem was limited to adult addicts.
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Meanwhile, the availability of services for young people remains limited.
“We need a new approach,” Nairn said. “To reduce the risks associated with prescription opioid use, and we know they exist, we need to engage youth in public health policy development, just as we did with adults.”
The research program was supervised by Patricia Conrod, researcher at the Center de recherche du CHU Sainte-Justine and professor of psychiatry and addictions at the Université de Montréal, as well as Sherry Stewart, professor of psychiatry at Dalhousie University.
The studies are published in the June 2022 issue of the Canadian Journal of Addiction.
