Clinicians commonly use urine drug tests to detect or validate self-reported drug use, particularly when beginning and maintaining opioid agonist therapy (for example buprenorphine or methadone). Until now, there has been no clinical consensus on urine drug testing frequency in Canada.
National guidelines for opioid use disorder released: Canadian consensus on urine drug testing frequency
Vancouver, B.C. [March 5, 2018] — “A first of its kind Canadian guideline setting out best practices for treating people with opioid addiction has been released today. The national guideline was based on provincial guidelines developed by the BC Centre on Substance Use (BCCSU) and implemented in British Columbia last year.” This guideline has been federalized and published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal. Health care professionals should follow the new guidelines.
Large Variation in Provincial Guidelines for Urine Drug Tests during Opioid Agonist Treatment
Before the new guidelines, each province had their own guidelines for treating opioid addiction. At that time, there was no summary of the published clinical practice guidelines for urine drug tests in Canada. Also, no one measured the consistency with which different provinces suggested administering drug screening. In June 2017, the American Society of Addiction Medicine released the national consensus document for appropriate use of drug testing.
Therefore, we looked at all policies and guidelines for Urine drug screening in Canada, examining the published clinical practice guidelines for each Canadian province and extracting all relevant data in March 2017. Our recent provincial guideline and policy scan found that urine drug screening frequency recommendations vary greatly among Provinces for persons receiving opioid agonist therapy for opioid addiction.
To read the whole story, please visit the journal website www.canadianjournalofaddiction.org or lookup the paper using the following citation:
Moss, E., McEachern, J., Adye-White, L., Priest, K., Gorfinkel, L., Wood, E., Cullen, W., Klimas, J. (2018) Large Variation in Provincial Guidelines for Urine Drug Screening during Opioid Agonist Treatment in Canada. Canadian Journal of Addiction, 9(2):6-9
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