Title
Suboptimal Addiction Interventions for Patients Hospitalized with Injection Drug Use-Associated Infective Endocarditis
Date Issued
01 May 2016
Access level
open access
Resource Type
journal article
Author(s)
Rosenthal E.
Karchmer A.
Theisen-Toupal J.
Rowley C.
Harvard Medical School
Publisher(s)
Elsevier Inc.
Abstract
Background Infective endocarditis is a serious infection, often resulting from injection drug use. Inpatient treatment regularly focuses on management of infection without attention to the underlying addiction. We aimed to determine the addiction interventions done in patients hospitalized with injection drug use-associated infective endocarditis. Methods This is a retrospective review of patients hospitalized with injection drug use-associated infective endocarditis from January, 2004 through August, 2014 at a large academic tertiary care center in Boston, Massachusetts. For the initial and subsequent admissions, data were collected regarding addiction interventions, including consultation by social work, addiction clinical nurse and psychiatry, documentation of addiction in the discharge summary plan, plan for medication-assisted treatment and naloxone provision. Results There were 102 patients admitted with injection drug use-associated infective endocarditis, 50 patients (49.0%) were readmitted and 28 (27.5%) patients had ongoing injection drug use at readmission. At initial admission, 86.4% of patients had social work consultation, 23.7% had addiction consultation, and 24.0% had psychiatry consultation. Addiction was mentioned in 55.9% of discharge summary plans, 7.8% of patients had a plan for medication-assisted treatment, and naloxone was never prescribed. Of 102 patients, 26 (25.5%) are deceased. The median age at death was 40.9 years (interquartile range 28.7-48.7). Conclusions We found that patients hospitalized with injection drug use-associated infective endocarditis had high rates of readmission, recurrent infective endocarditis and death. Despite this, addiction interventions were suboptimal. Improved addiction interventions are imperative in the treatment of injection drug use-associated infective endocarditis.
Start page
481
End page
485
Volume
129
Issue
5
Language
English
OCDE Knowledge area
Abuso de sustancias Ciencias del cuidado de la salud y servicios (administración de hospitales, financiamiento)
Scopus EID
2-s2.0-84953256522
PubMed ID
Source
American Journal of Medicine
ISSN of the container
00029343
Sponsor(s)
This study was supported, in part, through the Fellow Immersion Training (FIT) Program in Addiction Medicine under the CARE grant, R25DA013582, form the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
Sources of information: Directorio de Producción Científica Scopus