Are we speaking the same language? An alphabet soup of acronyms in the opioid epidemic

By Stephen Wood

Medication Replacement Therapy (MRT), Medication Assisted Therapy (MAT). Opioid Substitution Treatment (OST). Opioid Replacement Therapy (ORT). Opioid Agonist Therapy (OAT). This confusing array of acronyms are all terms that have made their way into the dictum of patients, healthcare providers, policy leaders, politicians and journalists —and new ones pop up every day.

Buprenorphine Enabled Recovery Pathway (BERP) is one I just came up with but could just as easily make its way into the menagerie of acceptable buzzwords for using an agonist-antagonist (or other drug) for the treatment of substance use disorder.

It doesn’t stop there.

Safe Consumption Facilities (SCF), Safer Injection Facilities (SIF), another SIF in Supervised Injection Facilities, Supervised Injection Sites (SIS), Medically Supervised Injection Sites (MSIS), and Drug Consumption Sites (DCS) only begin to round out the list of areas that people who use intravenous drugs can go to use in a safe, clean and supported environment.

We see these terms bantered about in the media, among healthcare providers, legislators and policy makers. We hear them from patients with SUD, their families as well as advocate organizations. These terms are in published research reports and clinical studies. To even the savviest person though, it is a confusing alphabet soup of acronyms that are all trying to describe an array of programs, possibly something similar or maybe even the same.

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