Get the Latest on Opioid Agonist Guidelines

By Diana Ballon, Editor, CAMH Education

New CAMH publication provides pharmacists with the latest guidelines on methadone and buprenorphine treatment

We’re excited about CAMH’s latest publication, which will give pharmacists the latest guidelines on treating opioid use disorder with methadone and buprenorphine. This edition has been highly anticipated! Its predecessor, Methadone Maintenance: A Pharmacist’s Guide to Treatment, 2nd Edition came out over a decade ago, before buprenorphine was even available as an option for treating opioid disorders. Now, both methadone and buprenorphine play a crucial role in treating people who become addicted to prescription opioids, such as oxycodone, fentanyl and hydromorphone, and also for heroin dependence.

Opioid Agonist Maintenance Treatment: A Pharmacist’s Guide to Methadone and Buprenorphine for Opioid Use Disorder will be a required reference for the more than 1,000 pharmacies in Ontario that dispense methadone. It will also likely be of interest to pharmacists all over Canada and beyond, as they look to Ontario for best practices. In the process of developing the book, the guidelines were reviewed by key stakeholders, including the Ontario College of Pharmacists, Health Canada and the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario.

The guide does more than contain crucial information about the pharmacology, legislation and safe dispensing of methadone and buprenorphine. It also:

• discusses opioid agonist maintenance treatment (OAMT) as an evidence-based treatment to help stabilize the lives of patients with opioid use disorders
• provides excellent guidance on supporting and encouraging patients, while helping the pharmacist and prescriber monitor patients’ progress and provide clinical guidelines for providing OAMT safely to patients
• gives information about preparation and storage of methadone and buprenorphine
• reviews dosing considerations for certain conditions, such as pregnancy, and with special populations, such as people with medical and psychiatric conditions, older adults and youth
• includes appendices that can help provide patient education, and that gives pharmacists sample forms (e.g., for take-home doses, for recording doses, for prescriptions).

Find out more and purchase the book on our newly refreshed store.