Buprenorphine Provision by Early Career Family Physicians

Buprenorphine can be used in primary care to treat opioid use disorder, but many family physicians feel unprepared to care for patients with opioid addiction. We sought to describe preparedness to provide and current provision of buprenorphine treatment by early career family physicians using data from the 2016 National Family Medicine Graduate Survey. Of 1,979 respondents, 10.0% reported preparedness to provide buprenorphine treatment, and 7.0% reported current buprenorphine provision. Residency preparation to provide buprenorphine treatment was most highly associated with current provision (odds ratio = 13.50; 95% CI, 7.59-24.03). Efforts to increase buprenorphine training may alleviate the workforce shortage to treat opioid use disorder. Key words: primary health care; buprenorphine; opiate substitution treatment; health manpower
INTRODUCTION Deaths from drug overdose in the United States have increased from 16,651 in 2010 to more than 64,000 in 2016. (1) An estimated 2.6 million Americans have opioid use [...]