Accelerating the Pace of Science: Improving Parenting Practices in Parents with Opioid Use Disorder

SYNOPSIS

A public health emergency exists in the United States as a result of rising overdose deaths related to Opioid Use Disorder (OUD). With the rise of OUD has also come an increase in the number of children exposed to parents who suffer from an OUD. There is a pressing need for parenting interventions for individuals with OUD to provide safe environments for the children being reared in the face of this epidemic. Research on parenting with an OUD is sparse, but it is impractical to move linearly from basic research to program development and implementation given the urgent need for intervention - a trajectory that prior research has established takes approximately 17 years. We have created an outline of strategies that can be used to accelerate the pace of science so that parenting practices are more immediately improved for this population. First, we summarize what is already known about OUD and parenting to characterize mechanisms that existing interventions have targeted and optimal settings for the wide dissemination of implementable interventions. Next, we identify existing interventions that either specifically target parents with OUD or mechanisms specific to parents with OUD. We describe four different approaches for accelerating the pace of science to improve the lives of parents with OUD and their children. By doing so, we hope to provide a roadmap for future researchers and practitioners to deliver more timely evidence-based interventions to address the additional burden placed on families and communities due to the rise in OUD in the United States.

ADDRESSES AND AFFILIATIONS

Leslie D. Leve, University of Oregon, College of Education 1215, Eugene, OR 97403-1215. E-mail: [email protected].

ARTICLE INFORMATION

Conflict of Interest Disclosures Each author signed a form for disclosure of potential conflicts of interest. No author reported any financial or other conflicts of interest in relation to the work described.

Ethical Principles The authors affirm having followed professional ethical guidelines in preparing this work. Although this was a review and no independent research was conducted, the studies reviewed described obtaining informed consent from human participants, maintaining ethical treatment and respect for the rights of human or animal participants, and ensuring the privacy of participants and their data, such as ensuring that individual participants cannot be identified in reported results or from publicly available original or archival data.

Funding Funding for the writing of this article was provided by UH3 OD023389 (PIs: Leve, Neiderhiser, Ganiban).

Role of the Funders/Sponsors None of the funders or sponsors of this research had any role in the design and conduct of the study; collection, management, analysis, and interpretation of data; preparation, review, or approval of the manuscript; or decision to submit the manuscript for publication.

Acknowledgments The ideas and opinions expressed herein are those of the authors alone, and endorsement by the authors’ institutions or the funding agency is not intended and should not be inferred.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Grant UH3 OD023389 from the National Institutes of Health Office of the Director (PIcs: Level, Neiderhiser, Ganiban).