Professor, pharmacist and current acting director of the Monash Addiction Research Centre Suzanne Nielsen says it’s important to get key information to patients who need it… and tailored to them.

Nielsen talks us through the development of the Opioid Safety Toolkit, which was designed specifically for patients prescribed opioids for pain, and the importance of raising awareness of opioid side-effects and reliance.

“Very few” people who might meet the criteria for opioid use disorder had ever asked for help, or even spoken to a health care provider about their concerns, she says.

“For whatever reason, those good conversations were just not happening,” Nielsen says. “And a lot of that we understand was around things like either stigma or patient fear or just a lack of awareness.”

03.38 – How can pharmacists support these patients?

5.05 – How can patients easily navigate through the toolkit?

06.40 – How have patient attitudes towards naloxone changed since deaths with novel synthetic opioids?

09.13 – What sort of questions might people as about naloxone?

12.13 – How can pharmacists encourage at-risk patients or their families to get naloxone?

14.55 – How can pharmacists be resourced?

18.13 – How to have these conversations with patients

21.29 – What about people taking opioids long-term?

Go here for the full list of active AJP podcasts. These can also be accessed via Apple Podcasts and Spotify 

You can access the full transcript of this podcast here. While we endeavour to ensure all important words and phrases are correct, please note there may be some minor inaccuracies in the transcription.

ACCESS PODCAST TRANSCRIPT