A Scoping Review of Youth Overdose Prevention Interventions.

Objectives: Opioid overdose deaths among youth (those 24 y of age and younger) significantly increased in recent years despite a decline in the overall prevalence of substance use. The 2 key objectives of this study were (1) to identify and summarize existing youth overdose prevention interventions and (2) to delineate what is needed to refine, implement, and disseminate this critical information to prevent youth overdose.

Methods: Using the adapted PRISMA Checklist for Scoping Reviews, we searched PubMed, Embase, and Web of Science for peer-reviewed descriptions of youth overdose prevention education interventions from 2010 to 2023. We searched US government institutions and news outlets to identify youth overdose prevention interventions in the gray literature. We synthesized key characteristics of programs.

Results: We identified a total of 16 unique programs that fit our inclusion criteria, 9 from the peer-reviewed literature and 7 from the gray literature. Half of the studies (n=8) described overdose prevention interventions with some evaluation component that indicated an improvement in overdose prevention knowledge. However, most programs do not have evaluation data available on whether they are effective in reducing opioid overdoses.

Conclusions: In this scoping review, we identified a small number of youth-specific overdose prevention interventions. There is an urgent need to develop, implement, and test interventions that address gaps in the youth overdose prevention landscape.