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Exploring Individual Experiences Obtaining Medication-Assisted Treatment For Opioid Use Disorder In Rural New Mexico, Krista L. Scorsone

Nursing ETDs

In the United States, more than 2.5 million people struggle with opioid use disorder. Compared to people living in urban areas, rural residents are twice as likely to overdose from opioid misuse. Reasons for this increase include excessive opioid prescribing and illegal diversion of opioids. This holds true in the rural counties of northern New Mexico, where drug overdose deaths are among the highest in the nation. Although medication-assisted treatment (MAT) with buprenorphine, methadone, or naltrexone is globally accepted as the most effective treatment, it is still accessed half as often rurally. The reasons for this imbalance are unknown, and …