Access to, Experience with, and Attitudes towards Take Home Naloxone: An Online Survey

The opioid public health crisis continues to burden individuals, communities, and economies. Public health opinion has emphasized the need for increased access to harm reduction services, but there is a dearth of information on the views and experiences of people who use opioids. Our study aimed to investigate the prevalence of naloxone use, attitudes, and experiences with naloxone among an online community of people who use drugs. We performed a cross-sectional survey looking at experiences with and attitudes towards take-home naloxone. Data is presented descriptively, with analysis of the differences between people who do and do not use opioids using the chi 2 and Fisher's exact tests. There were 1,143 respondents, of whom 70% were from the United States. Only 38% of participants who use opioids had received naloxone training, but 56% of these individuals said that they felt comfortable using a naloxone kit. Nearly all respondents (95%) said they would be willing to use naloxone on someone who had overdosed and approximately 90% would want naloxone used on them in case of an overdose. Regarding harm reduction, 24% of respondents said they had access to safe use programs, and 33% said they had access to clean needle exchange programs. A majority of the participants who use opioids were in favor of having naloxone with them when using drugs and believed naloxone should be freely available. This study demonstrates the receptiveness of take-home naloxone and highlights the need for better implementation of naloxone within communities that use opioids.