Drug overdose takes lives of health care workers

Drug overdose is one of the most common causes of death.

Worldwide, about 600,000 deaths were attributable to drug overdose in 2019, according to WHO.

A blog on The Mental Elf states that evidence suggests that the risk of overdose is elevated among some healthcare workers (HCWs).

One population-based cohort study in the United States of America, for example, found that counsellors, social workers, psychologists, and other community and social service workers have more than twice the risk of fatal drug overdose as people working outside of healthcare.

Meanwhile, others estimate that 8-15% of physicians live with substance use disorder (SUD).

Addressing this knowledge gap is a necessary step toward developing evidence-based strategies for overdose prevention and targeted support for HCWs living with SUD.

As there is difficulty collecting data directly from HCWs experiencing SUD, the researchers collected data from the National Programme on Substance Use Mortality (NPSUM).

They used a systematic strategy to search for reported deaths of HCWs where illicit substances and licensed medications (excluding nicotine, caffeine, and alcohol when not co-implicated with other substances) were involved.

Deaths are voluntarily reported to the NPSUM by coroners in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland and are based on healthcare records, postmortem investigations, and reports from witnesses, family and friends, and emergency services.

Reports from January 1 2000 – December 31 2022 were sampled.

58 reports were included in the analysis and they comprised: 47 (81%) employed as HCWs at the time of their death; 3 (5%) retirees; 4 (7%) on long-term sick leave; 2 (3%) students; 2 (3%) non-clinical staff.

Opioids were the most frequently implicated drug, cited in 25 (43%) cases, followed by benzodiazepines in 14 (24%) cases. The remaining three deaths were attributed to illicit drugs.