An interventional study of Virtual Overdose Response in Drug Overdose, sponsored by AHS Cancer Control Alberta. Withdrawn at 1 site in Canada. Open to participants aged 18 Years and older. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2021-05-25.
Sponsored by AHS Cancer Control Alberta · Not applicable, Interventional, and Other
To help prevent deaths in populations that cannot or will not access physical safer consumption services in Alberta, which may disproportionately include women and those who are not able to self-inject (Potier et al., 2014) the investigators propose to provide virtual (phone-based) supervised consumption services, staffed by people with lived experience.
Designed as a small open label clinical study to demonstrate proof of concept which will follow CONSORT guidelines, the investigators aim to recruit approximately 15 people who are currently using illicit substances and who currently use opioids (illicit or prescription - non-medically). The sample size of 15 balances pragmatic issues (difficulty in recruiting people who are actively using illicit substances) and the need to have a good sample of the population. These participants will be interviewed by the research coordinator in person prior to intervention initiation to determine baseline use; history of overdose; and current harm reduction activities (see appendix). They will then be asked to call the intervention number if they are going to be using alone (see appendix for call flow).
Each time a participant dials the number, the operator will gather (as part of the intervention) the address the participant is at, their name/pseudonym and a phone number that can be used as a call back number in case the call is disconnected. The phone line operator will then ask a) what they planned on using, b) the method of use, c) if the participant is using safe sterile supplies (and provide information on where they can get new supplies in their community), and d) if they have a naloxone kit (overdose reversal kit) available. They will then inform the participant that they will be checking in on them every 5 - 10 minutes and if they do not respond, they will call emergency medical services for them.
If the participant responds to each verbal prompt (calling their name) over a minimum of 30 minutes, the operator will let them know that they are disconnecting the call. The operator will offer to connect the participant to other health services, such as the location of new supplies, social services, addiction treatment and opioid agonist therapy. If the participant fails to respond to a prompt (or the call is disconnected and is not able to be reconnected), the operator will contact the dispatch supervisor and the process for emergency services dispatch will be initiated.
139 studies on the registry are indexed under Drug Overdose; 24 are open to participants now.
Browse Drug Overdose studies →AHS Cancer Control Alberta is the lead sponsor of 182 studies on the registry; 31 are open to participants now.
Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.
Exclusion Criteria:
All participants will be given the phone number and encouraged to call any time they plan to use substances alone
Behavioral: Virtual Overdose Response
All participants will be provided the phone number and encouraged to call when they use alone.
Usage
Number of times participants call the phone line
Time frame: 3 months
EMS response time
Amount of time from calling 911 to EMS arriving on scene
Time frame: 3 months
EMS dispatch outcome
qualitative description of dispatch outcome
Time frame: 3 months
Length of calls
overall time required for a single call to the service
Time frame: 3 months
Proportion of calls for which EMS is dispatched
quantitative analysis of the number of times the operator calls 911 for a participant
Time frame: 3 months
Timing of calls
Analysis of what time of day most calls come in to the service
Time frame: 3 months
Health care usage
analysis of overall health system usage (based on administrative data) by the participants
Time frame: 3 months
Plan to share: No — There are no plans to share IPD
This study is withdrawn, as verified in May 2021. You cannot join it, but the record below documents what was studied.
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AHS Cancer Control Alberta