Exploring profile, effects and toxicity of novel synthetic opioids and classical opioids via Twitter: A qualitative study

Five main themes were found related to uses of opioids; public knowledge and attitude, desired effects, adverse events, and harm reduction strategies. For public knowledge and attitude, users reported about sources of opioids, as well as purity, addiction potential and lethal effects. The main uses of opioids included self-medication and for recreational purposes. For self-medications, users sought opioids against anxiety, depression, pain, and overcoming a previous opioid addiction. However, adverse events related to opioid use surpassed the desired effects and were: psychosis, addiction, withdrawal, respiratory depression and lethal effects. Most of the adverse events were linked to novel opioids rather than classical ones.