OUD and mental illness: Prevalence and risk of overdose

Abstract

A presentation at last month's American Psychiatric Association's annual meeting revealed important findings about opioid use disorder (OUD) and comorbid mental health diagnoses. The study, by Felipe Castillo, M.D. of Montefiore University Hospital, focused on the prevalence and correlates of OUD and the risk of opioid overdose from a large state‐wide Medicaid claims database of patients. The study population (n = 523,885) included individuals 18 years and older with a mental health diagnosis recorded in the first position on at least one inpatient or two outpatient records from a clinical setting and who were continuously enrolled in New York state Medicaid during 2020. The diagnoses covered for the study excluded substance use disorders, neurodevelopmental (other than attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) and neurocognitive diagnoses alone.