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Opioids have antidepressant properties, but patients quickly grow tolerant to them and can become addicted. The partial opioid antagonist buprenorphine, used to detoxify and maintain opiate-dependent patients, may have more-persistent antidepressant properties. To learn about buprenorphine's effects on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), researchers conducted an observational study of Veterans Affairs patients with chronic pain, substance-use dependence (mostly opiates), and PTSD. There were 205 patients being maintained on opioid therapy for pain and 177 who started sublingual buprenorphine (typically for opioid use disorder) and continued for at least 60 days.
Analyses controlled for demographics, alcohol use, antidepressant use, pain, …