Influence of buprenorphine replacement therapy

Introduction. Opiates and opoids create physical and psychological addiction. Official statistics on the number of opiate addicts in Serbia doesn't exist. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime estimates that in 2014 some 29 million people in the world are dependent on some sort of drug. Method. This paper belongs to a group of review papers. Based on the key words (buprenorphine, substitution therapy, psychoactive substances), as well as various databases, isolated references were analyzed, systematized and presented in this paper. Discusion. Substitution therapy is most often used therapy method. Substitution therapy is a form of therapy in which an antagonist, a new substance with properties and actions of similar substances, is used. Agonists are used to provide a more controlled form of addiction. The most commonly used antagonist is methadone whose use in Europe reaches 90% of total opioid substitution, although it has been lately replaced by buprenorphine, a partial agonist-antagonist and is most commonly used in France. Researches show that buprenorphine causes less physical dependence than methadone and other substitutes. It also appears that there is less potential for drug abuse when buprenorphine is used instead of methadone. Conclusion. Many aspects of the effects of buprenorphine have not been fully tested. Social reintegration is an important aspect of social rehabilitation of opioid addicts, and it is therefore extremely important to recognize psychological and social factors that can act as protective factors, but also as risk factors. As the impact of buprenorphine on the outcomes of social rehabilitation has not been studied so far, it is necessary to design new studies that would go in this direction.