A scoping review of opioid misuse in the rural United States

This study is a scoping review of the original research literature on the misuse of opioids in the rural United States (US) and maps the literature of interest to address the question: What does the original research evidence reveal about the misuse of opioids in rural US communities? This study used a modified preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) approach which is organized by five distinct elements or steps: beginning with a clearly formulated question, using the question to develop clear inclusion criteria to identify relevant studies, using an approach to appraise the studies or a subset of the studies, summarizing the evidence using an explicit methodology, and interpreting the findings of the review. The initial search yielded 119 peer reviewed articles and after coding, 41 papers met the inclusion criteria. Researcher generated surveys constituted the most frequent source of data. Most studies had a significant quantitative dimension to them. All the studies were observational or cross-sectional by design. This analysis found an emerging research literature that has generated evidence supporting the claim that rural US residents and communities suffer a disproportionate burden from the misuse of opioids compared to their urban or metropolitan counterparts.