Journal article 817 views 135 downloads
Handheld Raman Spectroscopy in the First UK Home Office Licensed Pharmacist-Led Community Drug Checking Service
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Mark Scott,
Giorgia Vaccaro,
Rosalind Gittins ,
Salvatore Ferla ,
Fabrizio Schifano,
Amira Guirguis
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, Volume: 20, Issue: 6, Start page: 4793
Swansea University Authors:
Salvatore Ferla , Amira Guirguis
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© 2023 by the authors. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license.
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DOI (Published version): 10.3390/ijerph20064793
Abstract
Across the world, the interest in point-of-care drug checking as a harm-reduction intervention is growing. This is an attempt to improve intelligence about current drug trends and reduce drug-related morbidity and mortality. In the UK, drug-related harm is increasing exponentially year after year. A...
| Published in: | International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health |
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| ISSN: | 1660-4601 |
| Published: |
UK
MDPI AG
2023
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| Online Access: |
Check full text
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| URI: | https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa62790 |
| Abstract: |
Across the world, the interest in point-of-care drug checking as a harm-reduction intervention is growing. This is an attempt to improve intelligence about current drug trends and reduce drug-related morbidity and mortality. In the UK, drug-related harm is increasing exponentially year after year. As such, specialist community treatment services are exploring new methods to improve engagement with people who use drugs (PWUD), who may require support for their problematic drug use. This need has driven the requirement to pilot an on-site, time-responsive, readily available drug-checking service at point-of-support centres. In this study, we piloted the UK’s first Home Office-licensed drug-checking service that was embedded into a community substance-misuse service and had all on-site analysis and harm-reduction interventions led and delivered by pharmacists. We report on the laboratory findings from the associated confirmatory analysis (UHPLC-MS, GC-MS, and 1H NMR) to assess the performance of the on-site hand-held Raman spectrometer and outline the challenges of providing real-time analysis of psychoactive substances in a clinical setting. Whilst acknowledging the limitation of the small sample size (n = 13), we demonstrate the potential suitability of using this technology for the purposes of screening substances in community-treatment services. Portability of equipment and timeliness of results are important and only very small samples may be provided by people who use the service. The challenges of accurately identifying substances from complex mixtures were equally found with both point-of-care Raman spectroscopy and laboratory confirmatory-analysis techniques. Further studies are required to confirm these findings. |
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| Keywords: |
drug checking; drug detection; point-of-care testing; harm reduction; drug-related deaths |
| College: |
Faculty of Medicine, Health and Life Sciences |
| Funders: |
This research was funded by University of Hertfordshire, grant number 11.101336.3367. |
| Issue: |
6 |
| Start Page: |
4793 |