Heroin and Fentanyl (NA2539)
Author(s): Patsy Barnes, RN, BA
Pre-Approved for: ACM, CA BRN, CCAPP, CCM, CE Broker Provider, CLCP, CMCPS, COHN/COHN-S, CRCC, CVE, CVRP, Delaware BON, FCB, RNs
Credit Hours: 3
Course Format
This course is online. All course material is available online and is accessible immediately after purchase from your account homepage. Certificate of Completion is available immediately upon passing the exam.
Course Overview
Heroin has a complex and significant history in the United States. It has played a notable role in music culture, influencing genres from jazz through to the beatnik era and rock and roll. In recent decades, heroin was primarily considered an urban issue, often associated with inner city gangs. More recently, however, it has become a widespread concern in middle-class suburban communities.
Fentanyl, on the other hand, has long been utilized in medical settings for pain management. It is highly effective in acute emergency situations due to its potency and brief duration of action, and is also administered as a patch for patients experiencing chronic pain from cancer or other terminal illnesses.
The connection between these two substances lies within the broader context of the opioid epidemic, which has brought both heroin and fentanyl to prominence in contemporary society for deeply concerning reasons.
Course Objectives
- Describe the drug heroin and its use/abuse in the United States.
- List treatments for heroin addiction, including CAM.
- Discuss fentanyl, its uses, and its abuses.
- Explain how heroin and fentanyl are part of the opioid crisis and overdose epidemic.
- Describe the cultural change in heroin use in the United States.
- List those changes that Canada is making in the wake of their opioid crisis.
Course Outline
- Heroin
- Fentanyl
- Opioid Statistics and the Waves of the Opioid Epidemic
- Cultural Change in Heroin Use
- Canadian Opioid Epidemic and Recommended Changes