Ineffectiveness of Paramedic Naloxone Administration as a Standalone Metric for Community Opioid Overdoses and the Increasing Use of Naloxone by Community Members.
J Chris SmithWesley S BurrPublished in: Prehospital emergency care (2022)
PNA calls did not account for a significant percentage of opioid overdoses attended to by paramedics. The strong association between PNA and call location being a residence, along with increasing use of community naloxone kits, may cause certain populations to be under-represent if PNA is used as a standalone metric. The decreasing association with time may also lead to a falsely improving metric further reducing its effectiveness. Thus, PNA when used alone may no longer be a suitable metric for opioid overdose tracking.