ArticleThe International journal on drug policy2022
A pilot implementation study to scale-up methadone in incarcerated persons with opioid use disorder and retain them on treatment after release in Moldova.
Article in The International journal on drug policy, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed, 10 citations in OpenAlex.
- Probation as a targeted entry point for scaling up opioid agonist therapies in Moldova using a modified screening, brief intervention and referral to treatment strategy.PLOS global public health · 2026Article
- Multilevel determinants of medication preferences for opioid use disorder among criminal-legal-involved populations: Insights from a scoping review.Drug and alcohol dependence reports · 2025Review
- Pilot of Methadone for Recently Incarcerated People with Human Immunodeficiency Virus and Opioid Use in South Africa.Journal of correctional health care : the official journal of the National Commission on Correctional Health Care · 2025Article
- Depression and anxiety among people living with HIV and key populations at risk for HIV in the Eastern European and Central Asian region: a scoping review.BMJ public health · 2025Article
- Higher methadone dose at time of release from prison predicts linkage to maintenance treatment for people with HIV and opioid use disorder transitioning to the community in Malaysia.The International journal on drug policy · 2024Article
- Introducing methadone maintenance therapy into Ukrainian prisons: a qualitative study of criminal subculture, Russia's full-scale invasion, and contested methadone objects.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2023Article
- HIV, substance use, and mental health care in prisons.The lancet. Psychiatry · 2022Article
- Interest without uptake: A mixed-methods analysis of methadone utilization in Kyrgyz prisons.PloS one · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors at 2 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundEastern Europe and Central Asia have intertwined HIV and incarceration epidemics, concentrated in people who inject drugs. Moldova is one of the few countries in this region that offers methadone within prisons, but uptake and post-release retention remains suboptimal. Screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment (SBIRT) procedures are a potential implementation strategy to address this problem.
methodsFrom June 1, 2017 to March 3, 2018, we conducted a 2-stage SBIRT strategy in nine prisons and four pre-trial detention facilities in Moldova among incarcerated persons with opioid use disorder (OUD; N = 121) and within 90 days of release. Survey results were analyzed to evaluate the effect of the SBIRT strategy on the uptake of and post-release retention on methadone maintenance treatment (MMT).
resultsAmong the 121 screened with OUD, 27 were on MMT at baseline within the prison and this number increased to 41 after the two-step SBIRT intervention, reflecting a 51.9% increase over baseline. Eleven (78.6%) of the 14 participants that newly started MMT did so only after completing both SBIRT sessions. The brief intervention did not significantly improve knowledge about methadone but did improve attitudes towards it. Among the 41 participants who received methadone during this trial, 40 (97.6%) were retained 6 months after release; the one participant not retained was on methadone at the time of the intervention and had planned to taper off.
conclusionThe SBIRT strategy significantly improved participant attitudes, but treatment initiation mostly occurred after completing both sessions, including soon after release, but remained low overall. Work within the Moldovan prison subculture to dispel negative myths and misinformation is needed to further scale-up OAT in Moldova.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.