Dare 2 Discuss social media campaign: An educational initiative to improve opioid use disorder discussions between the pharmacist and patient.

Abstract

Background: Opioid use disorder (OUD) is a chronic substance use disorder that currently results in significant morbidity and mortality within the United States. The Opioid and Naloxone Education program is a pharmacy-centered opioid risk screening process to identify patients at risk for OUD and opioid overdose. Three years after inception, data indicated patients screened as high-risk for OUD were receiving opioid safety interventions; however the evaluation noted a lack of OUD education with patients.

Objective: To describe and assess an educational initiative for pharmacists which is delivered via social media for the improvement of pharmacist-patient communication surrounding OUD education.

Methods: The initiative was named 'Dare 2 Discuss' and video content was developed to align with prior research citing challenges to health care provider-patient OUD education. Data to evaluate pharmacist interventions/education delivered to patients was collected by a pharmacy services documentation platform and social media performance was captured by each respective social media dashboard.

Results: The first video was posted on October 1, 2022 and the last video was posted on April 10, 2023. Each video took approximately 2.5 hours to create and averaged 42 seconds in length (17-168 seconds). On average, videos received 233 Facebook views (55-489 views) and 527 Instagram views (232-1434 views). The postintervention phase indicated that patient receipt of OUD education by the pharmacist increased by 23% and patient receipt of community support services information increased by 68%.

Conclusion: 'Dare 2 Discuss' campaign may have improved pharmacist self-efficacy with subsequent adjustment of patient education techniques when addressing OUD conversations. These findings highlight the feasibility of a social media-delivered educational initiative to have a potential impact on factors associated with the opioid crisis and risk-reduction education by pharmacists. Creating relevant and easy-to-digest educational materials for health professionals is an important step in advancing practice and improving patient care. Results from the Dare 2 Discuss campaign suggest that this educational initiative may be an effective method to reach a broad number of pharmacists to improve patient interactions.