Young Houston Emergency Opioid Engagement System

• Status: Recruiting
• Trial end date: 2026-04-01
• Target enrollment: 0
• Participant gender: All

Summary

The Houston Emergency Response Opioid Engagement System for Youths and Adolescents (Young HEROES) is a community-based research program integrating assertive outreach, medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD), behavioral counseling, and peer recovery support. The objective is to compare differences in engagement and retention in treatment for individuals with opioid use disorder. The investigators also intend to understand the prevalence of opioid overdoses and OUD among youth in Houston.

• Phase: Phase 4
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers?: No

Details

• Lead Sponsor: The University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston
• Treatments: Buprenorphine; Buprenorphine, Naloxone Drug Combination; Naloxone

Criteria

Inclusion Criteria:

• In otherwise good health based on physician assessment and medical history

• Drug screen positive for opioids

• Patients express a willingness to stop opioid use

• Meet Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders - Text Revision (DSM-IV-TR) criteria for opioid dependence

• Patients must be able to speak English

• Be agreeable to and capable of signing the informed consent and assent (parent or guardian must consent, minor must assent)

Exclusion Criteria:

• Non-English-speaking patients

• Have a known sensitivity to buprenorphine or naloxone

• Be physiologically dependent on alcohol, benzodiazepines, or other drugs of abuse that require immediate medical attention. Other substance use diagnoses are not exclusionary.

• Have a medical condition that would, in the opinion of the study physician, make participation medically hazardous, including unstable cardiovascular disease, neurological deficits, trauma, acute hepatitis, stroke, and liver or renal disease)

• Be acutely psychotic, severely depressed, and in need of inpatient treatment, or is an immediate suicide risk

• Be a nursing or pregnant female