Higher death rates among opioid treatment recipients in Austria
Compared with Austria’s general population, age-adjusted death rates were 7.06 times as high for women and 3.86 times as high for men.
An observational study included all 26,031 people, 76% men, recorded in Austria’s national opioid agonist treatment registry between 2002 and 2019. This treatment uses medicines that activate opioid receptors, the sites on cells where opioids act. Researchers linked registry records to national cause-of-death records and followed the cohort through 2021. They recorded 2,358 deaths.
Death rates were higher than in the general population across all major causes, with a greater relative excess among women. Substance use-related, infectious and liver-related conditions showed high relative excess mortality. By the early to mid-40s, deaths from non-communicable diseases—conditions that do not spread between people—collectively exceeded substance use-related deaths.
Why it matters
For aging populations receiving opioid treatment, these findings help frame questions about how long-term diseases contribute to mortality beyond substance use-related causes.
Caveats
The observational comparison cannot show what caused the excess deaths or how treatment affected mortality. It covered people registered for this treatment in Austria, not all people with opioid use disorder.
