Abstracts by keywords: opioid dependence
It is estimated that around 200,000 people in Germany consume illegal opioid-containing substances each year (Wittchen et al. 2011). This consumption can lead to opioid dependence, a lifelong chronic disease (Wittchen et al. 2011) that is associated with psychiatric and somatic comorbidities such as hepatitis C and HIV. Even if fully synthetic opioids such as the narcotic (BTM) painkillers oxycodone or fentanyl also pose increasing problems with regard to the development of addictive behavior, heroin remains the largest problem area of opioid addiction. Heroin is also considered to be the drug with the highest addictive potential and the highest mortality (Gable 2006). The treatment of opioid addiction usually involves various substitution therapies, in which the illegal opioids are replaced by medically dispensing medication prescribed in accordance with the law and guidelines. With inadequate treatment, which without substitution therapy consists only of detoxification measures, keeping away from the substance, for example in the course of the prison system and rare consultations, the affected patients develop a “revolving door syndrome”, i.e. frequent and regular admissions to hospital, and often die of an overdose. induced respiratory paralysis or secondary comorbidities with severe malnutrition. Substitution therapy enables the decriminalization and stabilization of the patient's psychosocial situation, the systematic treatment of infectious diseases, as well as the influence on the general conditions and targeted long-term therapeutic work on comorbidities such as personality disorders and depression backgrounds. In 2017, there were 78,800 opioid-dependent patients in substitution therapy in Germany (Report on the Substitution Register 2018).