pain and sleep measures in methadone and in suboxone patients

Background: pain and impaired sleep are often reported by patients in opiate substitution therapy. objectives: we compared sleep and pain ratings by patients treated with methadone to those treated with suboxone (buprenorphine/naloxone combination). patients and methods: sixty-eight patients (44 men, 24 women) undergoing opiate substitution treatment were treated with methadone (mean dose = 42.2 mg, sd = 24.6) or suboxone (mean dose = 9.7 mg, sd = 5.0). their ratings of current level of pain on a scale from 0 (no pain) to 10 (extreme pain), their sleep ratings on the pittsburgh sleep quality index, and outcomes of their urine screening tests for cocaine, oxycodone, opiates, and benzodiazepines were recorded. results: sleep quality was rated as “fairly bad” by 42.0% and as “very bad” by 8.2% of our patients. moderate to severe levels of pain (pain ratings > 3 points) were reported by 55.9% of our patients. neither the dose of suboxone nor the dose of methadone correlated with pain and sleep ratings (rho, p > 0.05). suboxone patients did not differ from those on methadone in their sleep and pain ratings (mann-whitney, p > 0.05). conclusions: suboxone and methadone patients did not differ in their ratings of pain and sleep.