Building Capacity to Address Opioid Use Disorder: Results from an embedded education program in health profession curricula

Context: Morbidity and mortality from Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) is a health crisis in the United States. Buprenorphine is an effective medication for OUD but uptake is slow due in part to lack of provider knowledge, confidence, and negative attitudes/stigma toward patients with OUD.

Objective: Build workforce capacity to effectively treat opioid use disorder by improving knowledge, increasing confidence, increasing motivation to treat persons with OUD and decreasing negative attitudes/stigma towards persons with OUD.

Study Design and Analysis: The study used a pre-post design with self-report from learners who participated in buprenorphine training and shadowing experiences. Analyses were descriptive and included t-tests to determine significance between pre and post tests and compare outcomes between learner types.

Setting and Population: This study was carried out at the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque NM. The population of focus included medical students, nurse practitioners and physician assistants.

Intervention: Our university developed a training for pre-licensure physicians, physician assistants and nurse practitioners that included the required training for prescribers and a shadowing experience.

Outcome Measures: Improved knowledge, skills and attitudes about persons with OUD and treatment, plans to provide treatment post-graduation, and for the training to be embedded into school’s curricula.

Results: We found significant improvement in outcomes from pre to posttest across knowledge, attitudes, confidence and motivation to treat OUD. Results were positive overall including improved knowledge and attitudes toward persons with OUD, better understanding of the benefits of this treatment for patients, increased confidence and motivation to provide this treatment post-graduation. The training is now embedded in each program’s graduation requirements. Overall results were similar between different learner types.

Conclusions: Developing a didactic and experiential training on buprenorphine treatment for opioid use disorder and embedding it into medical, physician assistant, and nurse practitioner licensure programs helps prepare future providers to treat OUD in a range of settings. Key to replicating this program in other university settings is to engage faculty members who actively provide treatment to persons with OUD to ensure shadowing opportunities and serve as role models for learners.