Use of opioid overdose antidote by laypersons rose 43% from 2020 to 2022, study finds

CNN โ€” 

After years of continuously rising opioid overdoses, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that overdose deaths decreased 3% in 2023, the first annual decrease since 2018. A new study shows how the increased administration of naloxone by non-medical laypersons โ€“ or bystanders with little to no medical training โ€“ could be one factor contributing to this decline.

Naloxone, best known by the brand name Narcan, became available over the counter last fall.ย 

Making naloxone, a drug used to reverse opioid overdose thatโ€™s commonly known as Narcan, more widely available has been part of concentrated efforts to increase layperson intervention.

The new study, published Monday in the journal JAMA Network Open, says that from June 2020 to June 2022, emergency medical services reported 744,078 patients receiving naloxone across the US. The researchers found that EMS-documented naloxone administration rates fell 6.1% in this period, but the percentage of people who got naloxone from a layperson before EMS arrival increased 43.5%.

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