Stress Response in Opioid Use Disorder

Opioid use disorder is a major public health problem. Although there are effective treatments
for this disorder, many people still relapse and thus there is a need for new treatments to
improve outcomes. People who have a strong emotional and physical response to stress are at a
higher risk of relapse. The goal of this project is to test the effect of strategies to
reduce response to stress in people diagnosed with opioid use disorder. Men and women
diagnosed with opioid use disorder will be recruited for a one-session study. Participants
will be randomly assigned to one of three brief instructional conditions followed by a brief
laboratory stress test. Investigators hypothesize that, compared to education about stress,
brief strategies to help people cope with negative emotions will reduce responses to stress
and increase tolerance of stress. If this hypothesis is supported, it will inform the
development of new treatments to improve outcome in opioid use disorder.