The Relationship between Dissociative Symptoms and the Medications Used in the Treatment of Opioid Use Disorder

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2-2021

Abstract

Opioid use disorder has long been associated with psychiatric symptoms, including dissociative experiences. Medications used to treat opioid use disorder can potentially impact dissociative symptoms, but the existing literature has not explored this. We examined the relationship between dissociative symptoms and opioid use disorder using the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES). We studied subjects who were taking prescribed methadone, buprenorphine, or naltrexone for opioid use disorder. We gave the DES, the Patient Health Questionairre-9 (PHQ-9), and the PTSD Checklist for DSM-5 (PCL-5) with Criterion A to subjects in three substance use treatment facilities in Ohio. We conducted Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Spearman's Rank Correlations to examine associations between the variables and outcomes. We developed three separate multiple linear regression models. We included 116 participants in our exploratory and naturalistic study. The majority of participants were female (51.7%), white (89.5%), ≤ 40 years of age (64.7%), and taking buprenorphine (55%). The average DES score was 16.1 (standard deviation = 14.9) and we considered 80.9% to have low dissociation (score < 30). Approximately 55% (n = 64) of participants were taking prescribed buprenorphine. Approximately 27% (n = 32) were taking prescribed methadone and approximately 18% (n = 21) were taking prescribed naltrexone (oral or extended release). There was a significant association between opioid medication type and log dissociative symptoms (p = .01). Participants taking prescribed buprenorphine had higher mean log dissociation symptom scores (2.7) compared to those taking prescribed methadone (2.2) and prescribed naltrexone (2.1). Log dissociation symptom scores were significantly associated with last use of any opiates (rs = -0.21; p = .02) and time on medication (rs = -0.228; p = .01). Compared to those taking buprenorphine, those taking both methadone (β = -0.26; p = .01) and naltrexone (β = -0.27; p = .006) had significantly lower dissociation scores, controlling for the other variables in the model. Dissociation scores were positively correlated with depression scores (r = 0.45; p < .0001) and with PCL-5 scores (r = 0.51; p < .0001). Our study highlights the importance of diagnosing and monitoring dissociative symptoms in individuals who are taking prescribed medications for opioid use disorder, especially since dissociative symptoms can interfere with substance use treatment.

DOI

10.1016/j.jsat.2020.108195

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