Waiting times disparities for medication-assisted therapy among opioid use disorder treatment population in the United States

Abstract

Opioid use disorder (OUD) treatment has been described as beneficial in reducing the burden of OUD and its related complications. Thus far, there is a paucity of literature on the time-to-treatment differences from the period of seeking treatment to when the patient starts treatment. Hence, it is deemed a form of barrier to the accessibility of OUD treatment programs. We aim to study the relationship between accessibility for medication-assisted treatment and the disparity concerning days waiting to enter OUD treatment. The treatment episode data set (TEDS) was utilized for this study. The full sample of 2018 TEDS-D (N = 382,547) is representative of OUD patients that utilized SUD treatment facilities within the 50 states of the United States. Univariate and multivariable logistic analysis of the independent variables, and other covariates with the dependent variables were explored to estimate the adjusted odds ratio relationship. Medication-assisted opioid therapy use among respondents was significantly different with waiting 1–7 days [AOR = 1.321 (95% CI = 1.248–1.400)] and >7 days [AOR = 0.729 (95% CI = 0.665–0.799)] to enter OUD treatment compared to waiting for less than a day. Among adults seeking OUD treatment admissions, our study showed that waiting times vary with MAT use as there was early entry compared to >1week wait time. Similarly, significant associations were reported across different sociodemographic attributes except for biological sex.

Keywords:

• Waiting times
• opioid use disorder
• medication-assisted treatment
• disparities
• sociodemographic attributes

Disclosure statement

All authors declare that they have no financial relationships at present or within the previous three years with any organizations that might have an interest in the submitted work. All authors declare that there are no other relationships or activities that could appear to have influenced the submitted work. Authors declare no conflict of interest. All authors consent to this manuscript’s publication.

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.