The patient is a 24-year-old man brought to your clinic by his family for an evaluation. The patient states that he is struggling with prescription pain pills and wants help. He appears to be in opioid withdrawal; he describes anorexia and diarrhea, he is yawning and sweating upon examination. He scores 15 on the Clinical Opioid Withdrawal Scale (COWS), indicating moderate withdrawal.
Initiate office-based buprenorphine/naloxone (Suboxone) with a plan for observation.
Include your rationale for each treatment decision
Develop a treatment plan for this patient that includes ongoing MAT and psychosocial treatment interventions.
Construct a safe taper schedule for a patient taking alprazolam (Xanax) 2mg TID. Include a brief narrative explaining the evidence for tapering a patient who has been on a benzodiazepine for an extended amount of time.
Foli, K. J., Huang, W., Adams, N., Kersey, S., Good, B., Ott, C., & Duha, M. S. (2021). Nurses’ Substance Use Education Through a Massive Open Online Course (NSUE-MOOC). Purdue University, School of Nursing, West Lafayette, Indiana.