Ineffectiveness of Paramedic Naloxone Administration as a Standalone Metric for Community Opioid Overdoses and the Increasing Use of Naloxone by Community Members

Abstract

Introduction

With Canada’s growing opioid crisis, many communities are attempting to monitor cases in real-time. Paramedic Naloxone Administration (PNA) has become a common metric for monitoring overdoses. We evaluate whether the use of naloxone administration counts represents an effective monitoring tool for community opioid overdoses.

Methods

The electronic ambulance call report database of Peterborough Paramedics (Ontario, Canada) was examined. De-identified records from 2016–2019 with problem codes of “Opioid Overdose”, along with all patients documented as receiving naloxone were extracted. Chi-square and Bonferroni-adjusted post hoc proportion tests were used for comparison of counts.

Results

558 opioid overdoses were identified, 124 (22%) of which had PNA documented, 181(32%) had naloxone prior to arrival documented and 264 (47%) received no naloxone. Over the three years, the annual number of overdose cases increased, while the proportion of patients receiving PNA decreased significantly each year. PNA was also associated with calls in a residence. Naloxone was administered by a non-paramedic in 262 cases, with 181 of these identified as opioid overdoses and was more common in later years and in cases occurring in public places.

Conclusion

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.

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to thank Peterborough Paramedics and the County of Peterborough for their contributions to this research.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts for this article.

Data availability statement

Due to patient privacy concerns, supporting data is confidential and only available with written permission of the source agency.