A scoping review of emergency department take-home naloxone on patient and health outcomes.

Authors

Jorden A Arbour, Jennifer A Ma, Kenneth A Feder

Published in

CJEM. Jun 20, 2026. Epub Jun 20, 2026.

Abstract

The opioid crisis in North America continues to cause immense harm and loss of life. The distribution of naloxone has been recognized as an important tool to combat the opioid crisis. The emergency department (ED) setting provides an important opportunity to distribute naloxone to people that use opioids. The purpose of this scoping review was to summarize the literature surrounding ED-based take-home naloxone with a focus on key patient-centered health outcomes.
We performed a scoping review of naloxone distribution from the ED utilizing PRISMA Extension for Scoping Reviews guidelines. The databases MEDLINE, Embase, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, and CINAHL were searched for keywords related to naloxone and the ED. Abstracts were screened for relevance and a full text review was undertaken applying inclusion and exclusion criteria. Data were extracted and summarized by outcome of interest.
3475 studies were identified and screened for relevance. 24 studies were included in the results and analysis. Seven studies reported health outcomes related to take-home naloxone. Nine studies reported patient perceptions of take-home naloxone, and eight studies reported provider perceptions of take-home naloxone. No studies were identified that reported cost-effectiveness data. We found that take-home naloxone distribution in the ED setting is supported by both patients and ED providers. Knowledge gaps exist as to whether these programs are effective to improve patient health outcomes, or whether they are cost-effective.
Take-home naloxone distribution in the ED setting to combat the opioid overdose crisis is supported by patients and ED providers. Knowledge gaps exist as to whether these programs improve health outcomes for people who use opioids, or whether they are cost-effective. Take-home naloxone should be considered as part of a harm reduction strategy for patients presenting to the ED at risk for opioid overdose.

PMID:
42322519
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 22 Jun 2026.

Read full publication at:
Please sign in to see all details.

Stats

1-terrible, 9-excellent. How would you rate this publication? Sign in in to submit your rating.

Post a comment

You need to be signed in to post comments. You can sign in here.

Comments

There are no comments yet.