Community Pharmacists and Opioid Misuse

The current small scale single-blinded randomized controlled study will build on our preliminary studies by manualizing and examining the feasibility, acceptability, and clinical effect for the Brief Intervention Medication Therapy Management (BI-MTM) model. BI-MTM is a multicomponent community pharmacy-based intervention. BI-MTM is designed to: (1) promote opioid medication regimen adherence, (2) reduce opioid medication misuse, (3) connect participants with patient navigation (a chronic condition care model) to increase self-management of health conditions that increase risk for misuse, and (4) provide naloxone rescue training referrals. Patients will be screened across 14 months for opioid medication misuse in an urban community pharmacy affiliated with a major medical system. Patients positive for misuse will be randomly assigned to BI-MTM (n=23) or Standard Medication Counseling (n=23). Standard Medication Counseling is the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services requirement for pharmacists in the US wherein pharmacy patients filling prescriptions receive information and opt-in counseling. This study will demonstrate feasibility and acceptability of BI-MTM for community pharmacy patients who misuse their opioid medications for future intervention implementation in a fully powered randomized trial. This study will also generate preliminary data regarding opioid medication misuse elimination and increases in participant self-management activation for comorbid health conditions that increase risk for misuse.