Acceptance of medications for opioid use disorder in recovery housing programs in Missouri

Background: Recovery housing plays an important role in supporting individuals in their recovery by building recovery capital and providing stable living environments; however, the extent to which medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD), the gold standard for OUD treatment, are accepted in recovery housing settings is unclear. The purpose of this study, as part of a larger statewide evaluation of Missouri recovery homes, was to identify the extent to which Missouri recovery houses were accepting of methadone, buprenorphine, and naltrexone as well as the extent to which the acceptance of each medication was linked to whether the recovery home encouraged tapering off MOUDs.

Methods: Sixty-four recovery housing managers and/or staff, out of 66 eligible recovery homes in Missouri completed the survey.

Results: Results indicated that methadone was the least accepted medication for long-term use followed by buprenorphine and then naltrexone. Recovery houses that had significantly lower overall acceptance of methadone encouraged tapering; however, the overall acceptance for buprenorphine and naltrexone was not significantly related to the encouragement of tapering off MOUDs.

Conclusion: This work highlights the need to develop reliable instruments to measure and assess MOUD-capable recovery homes and to increase knowledge and acceptance of MOUD within recovery home settings.