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Wounds and Skin and Soft Tissue Infections in People Who Inject Drugs and the Utility of Syringe Service Programs in Their Management
- Source :
- Advances in Wound Care
- Publication Year :
- 2021
- Publisher :
- Mary Ann Liebert Inc, 2021.
-
Abstract
- Significance: Opioid use disorder and transition to injection drug use (IDU) are an urgent, nationwide public health crisis. Wounds and skin and soft tissue infections (SSTIs) are common complications of IDU that disproportionately affect people who inject drugs (PWID) and are a major source of morbidity and mortality for this population. Critical Issues: Injections in a nonsterile environment and reusing or sharing needles facilitates bacterial inoculation, with subsequent risk of serious complications such as sepsis, gangrene, amputation, and death. PWID are susceptible to infections with a wide spectrum of organisms beyond common culprits of SSTI, including Clostridium and Bacillus spp., as well as Candida. Recent Advances: Syringe services programs (SSPs) are cost-effective and successful in reducing harms associated with IDU. SSPs provide new equipment to PWID and aid in discarding used equipment. SSPs aim to reduce the risks of unhygienic injecting practices, which are associated with transmission of infections and blood-borne pathogens. Future Directions: Concurrently run SSPs and wound care clinics are uniquely positioned to facilitate care to PWID. Providing new, sterile equipment as well as early wound care intervention can reduce morbidity and mortality as well as health care expenditures by reducing the number of SSTI and injection-related wounds that require hospital admission. Establishment of wound care clinics as part of an SSP represents an untapped potential to reduce harm.
- Subjects :
- 0301 basic medicine
medicine.medical_specialty
Critical Review Articles
Population
Critical Care and Intensive Care Medicine
Drug Users
030207 dermatology & venereal diseases
03 medical and health sciences
Wound care
0302 clinical medicine
injection drug use
Intervention (counseling)
Health care
medicine
Humans
Skin Diseases, Infectious
Substance Abuse, Intravenous
education
Intensive care medicine
Syringe
education.field_of_study
business.industry
Transmission (medicine)
Soft Tissue Infections
Syringes
Public health
Opioid use disorder
Bacterial Infections
medicine.disease
United States
skin and soft tissue infections
wounds
030104 developmental biology
syringe services programs
Emergency Medicine
business
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 21621934 and 21621918
- Volume :
- 10
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Advances in Wound Care
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....803a34284322e246ade61a93189c0ba0