Date of Submission

Spring 5-1-2021

Document Type

Manuscript

Degree Name

Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP)

Department

Nursing

First Advisor

Dr. Trinette Radasa

Second Advisor

Dr. Alexa Curtis

Third Advisor

N/A

Abstract

Background: Fatal opioid overdose is a growing concern in the United States (U.S.). The medical community was assured by pharmaceutical companies that opioid pain relievers were not addictive. As a result, providers prescribed them at a significantly higher rate, which led to more extensive use of authorized and unauthorized opioids before it was realized that they can be highly habit-forming (The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [HHS], 2019). A growing body of evidence supports Naloxone Prescription Programs (NPP) for the prevention of fatal overdoses (Enteen et al., 2010). Objective: To describe evidence found to answer the following clinical question: In rural communities, do naloxone prescription programs affect opioid overdoses within three months? Method: An intensive search of Cochrane, Joanna Briggs, CINAHL, PubMed, and Scopus databases, which yielded a total of 64 possible articles of which 10 were summarized and used for the paper. Result: NPP decreases the rate of fatal opioid overdoses. Conclusion: Educating laypersons through community naloxone prescription programs and the distribution of take-home naloxone kits can decrease the occurrences of fatal opioid overdoses.

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