↓ Skip to main content

Alpha2‐adrenergic agonists for the management of opioid withdrawal

Overview of attention for article published in Cochrane database of systematic reviews, May 2016
Altmetric Badge

About this Attention Score

  • In the top 5% of all research outputs scored by Altmetric
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age (96th percentile)
  • High Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (84th percentile)

Mentioned by

news
5 news outlets
blogs
2 blogs
policy
2 policy sources
twitter
13 X users
facebook
1 Facebook page
wikipedia
6 Wikipedia pages

Citations

dimensions_citation
132 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
305 Mendeley
You are seeing a free-to-access but limited selection of the activity Altmetric has collected about this research output. Click here to find out more.
Title
Alpha<sub>2</sub>‐adrenergic agonists for the management of opioid withdrawal
Published in
Cochrane database of systematic reviews, May 2016
DOI 10.1002/14651858.cd002024.pub5
Pubmed ID
Authors

Linda Gowing, Michael Farrell, Robert Ali, Jason M White

Abstract

Withdrawal is a necessary step prior to drug-free treatment or as the endpoint of long-term substitution treatment. To assess the effectiveness of interventions involving the use of alpha2-adrenergic agonists compared with placebo, reducing doses of methadone, symptomatic medications, or an alpha2-adrenergic agonist regimen different to the experimental intervention, for the management of the acute phase of opioid withdrawal. Outcomes included the withdrawal syndrome experienced, duration of treatment, occurrence of adverse effects, and completion of treatment. We searched the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials (CENTRAL), MEDLINE (1946 to November week 2, 2015), EMBASE (January 1985 to November week 2, 2015), PsycINFO (1806 to November week 2, 2015), Web of Science, and reference lists of articles. Randomised controlled trials comparing alpha2-adrenergic agonists (clonidine, lofexidine, guanfacine, tizanidine) with reducing doses of methadone, symptomatic medications or placebo, or comparing different alpha2-adrenergic agonists to modify the signs and symptoms of withdrawal in participants who were opioid dependent. We used standard methodological procedures expected by The Cochrane Collaboration. We included 26 randomised controlled trials involving 1728 participants. Six studies compared an alpha2-adrenergic agonist with placebo, 12 with reducing doses of methadone, four with symptomatic medications, and five compared different alpha2-adrenergic agonists. We assessed 10 studies as having a high risk of bias in at least one of the methodological domains that were considered.We found moderate-quality evidence that alpha2-adrenergic agonists were more effective than placebo in ameliorating withdrawal in terms of the likelihood of severe withdrawal (risk ratio (RR) 0.32, 95% confidence interval (CI) 0.18 to 0.57; 3 studies; 148 participants). We found moderate-quality evidence that completion of treatment was significantly more likely with alpha2-adrenergic agonists compared with placebo (RR 1.95, 95% CI 1.34 to 2.84; 3 studies; 148 participants).Peak withdrawal severity may be greater with alpha2-adrenergic agonists than with reducing doses of methadone, as measured by the likelihood of severe withdrawal (RR 1.18, 95% CI 0.81 to 1.73; 5 studies; 340 participants; low quality), and peak withdrawal score (standardised mean difference (SMD) 0.22, 95% CI -0.02 to 0.46; 2 studies; 263 participants; moderate quality), but these differences were not significant and there is no significant difference in severity when considered over the entire duration of the withdrawal episode (SMD 0.13, 95% CI -0.24 to 0.49; 3 studies; 119 participants; moderate quality). The signs and symptoms of withdrawal occurred and resolved earlier with alpha2-adrenergic agonists. The duration of treatment was significantly longer with reducing doses of methadone (SMD -1.07, 95% CI -1.31 to -0.83; 3 studies; 310 participants; low quality). Hypotensive or other adverse effects were significantly more likely with alpha2-adrenergic agonists (RR 1.92, 95% CI 1.19 to 3.10; 6 studies; 464 participants; low quality), but there was no significant difference in rates of completion of withdrawal treatment (RR 0.85, 95% CI 0.69 to 1.05; 9 studies; 659 participants; low quality).There were insufficient data for quantitative comparison of different alpha2-adrenergic agonists. Available data suggest that lofexidine does not reduce blood pressure to the same extent as clonidine, but is otherwise similar to clonidine. Clonidine and lofexidine are more effective than placebo for the management of withdrawal from heroin or methadone. We detected no significant difference in efficacy between treatment regimens based on clonidine or lofexidine and those based on reducing doses of methadone over a period of around 10 days, but methadone was associated with fewer adverse effects than clonidine, and lofexidine has a better safety profile than clonidine.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 13 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 305 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
United States 2 <1%
Brazil 2 <1%
South Africa 1 <1%
Unknown 300 98%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Master 45 15%
Researcher 32 10%
Other 29 10%
Student > Doctoral Student 27 9%
Student > Ph. D. Student 23 8%
Other 56 18%
Unknown 93 30%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Medicine and Dentistry 101 33%
Nursing and Health Professions 23 8%
Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutical Science 18 6%
Psychology 16 5%
Neuroscience 11 4%
Other 33 11%
Unknown 103 34%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 65. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 11 November 2022.
All research outputs
#663,519
of 25,457,297 outputs
Outputs from Cochrane database of systematic reviews
#1,223
of 11,499 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#11,888
of 312,598 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Cochrane database of systematic reviews
#39
of 246 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,457,297 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 97th percentile: it's in the top 5% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 11,499 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 40.0. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 90% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 312,598 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 96% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 246 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 84% of its contemporaries.