From methadone to buprenorphine: Changes during a 10 year period within a national opioid maintenance treatment programme

Opioid maintenance treatment (OMT) is the most widely used treatment for opioid dependence. Maintenance programmes differ in various aspects and may also change over time. This paper investigates the changes in treatment practices within a national OMT programme during a 10 year period (2002–2011), especially with regard to the prescribing of methadone and buprenorphine. Data (n = 34,001) were collected by annual assessments questionnaires. In 2002, only 16% of the OMT patients received buprenorphine as their maintenance medication. By 2011 this percentage had increased significantly (p < .001) to 50.3%. In the same period the number of patients more than tripled (from 1,984 to 6,640, p < .001), and programme attrition rates decreased (p = .020). This relatively rapid shift is a part of the increasing reliance of addiction medicine upon a range of medications administered by different routes which has not been previously charted within a national treatment programme.