Background: Naloxone is a medication that reverses opioid overdose in emergency situations and prevents deaths. A group of 55 Eastern Virginia Medical School (EVMS) medical students were trained by REVIVE!, a program that educates on how to recognize and respond to an opioid overdose emergency with the administration of naloxone. We evaluated whether there is a difference in attitude change and overdose knowledge retention based on if trained EVMS students participated in teaching REVIVE! sessions in the Norfolk community.
Methods: Anonymous surveys were given to REVIVE! EVMS student participants right after their initial training and six months later. The following validated surveys were used: “Opioid overdose attitude scale (OOAS),” “Opioid overdose knowledge scale (OOKS)” and “Drug & Drug Users’ Problems Perceptions Questionnaire (DDPPQ)”. OOAS and DDPPQ use a Likert scale to measure attitude towards opioid overdose management and working with drug users, while OOKS tests knowledge base about opioid overdose.
Results: Students who participated in community trainings, on average, had a more positive attitude towards working with drug users than baseline data six months after their initial training. In contrast, students who did not participate in community trainings had a more negative attitude towards working with addiction. Participating students also scored higher on the opioid overdose knowledge scale than non-participating students. Measuring students’ attitudes towards managing an overdose showed that community-participating students’ concerns on dealing with an overdose and willingness to intervene were more positive, but that their self-perceived competence on dealing with an overdose situation was more negative than non-participating students.
Conclusions: Students who trained others in the community after their first initial REVIVE! training session had a more positive attitude towards working with drug users, better retention of opioid and overdose knowledge, and generally a more positive attitude towards managing an opioid overdose than students who do not participate in teaching the community. Future improvements can target why participating students feel less competent after teaching in the community.