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Pharmacists’ stigma toward patients engaged in opioid misuse: When 'social distance' does not mean disease prevention
- Source :
- Substance Abuse. 42:919-926
- Publication Year :
- 2021
- Publisher :
- SAGE Publications, 2021.
-
Abstract
- Background Health professionals may stigmatize and prefer social distance from patients with opioid misuse, leading to poorer quality of care provided. The degree to which pharmacists prefer social distance from patients with opioid misuse and opioid use disorder (OUD) is not known. Methods Pharmacists ( n = 187) completed a survey comprised of demographics, attitudinal, and Social Distance Scale (SDS) questions based on a vignette patient who displayed opioid misuse. SDS question responses and total scores (maximum of 30; higher scores representing great preference for social distance) were tallied and associations with attitudes and demographics were examined. Results Mean SDS total score was 16.32 (range 9–23). More than 59% of respondents had an SDS score >15, indicating overall lack of willingness to interact with the vignette patient. Females had a higher mean SDS score vs male pharmacists (16.58 vs. 15.36, respectively; p = 0.023). Pharmacists were more likely to prefer social distance from the vignette patient in personal situations (i.e. renting a room) than work-related interactions (i.e. providing patient education). Pharmacists with >10 years of experience, those without personal experience with a substance use disorder, those who strongly agreed that patients with OUD require excessive time and effort, and those who agreed that some people lack self-discipline to use prescription pain medication without becoming addicted had significantly higher SDS scores than pharmacists without these characteristics. Conclusions Pharmacists expressed significant preference for social distance indicating stigmatization of patients with opioid misuse. Pharmacists were comfortable performing pharmacy tasks with patients with opioid misuse, but were less comfortable forming therapeutic relationships, an important tenet of patient-centered care. Efforts are needed to examine contributions to social distance preferences and implement measures to reduce them. Targeting of pharmacists with >10 years’ experience and without personal experience with OUD may also be most beneficial.
- Subjects :
- Male
medicine.medical_specialty
Attitude of Health Personnel
Social Stigma
education
Pharmacist
Medicine (miscellaneous)
Pharmacy
Pharmacists
Humans
Medicine
Medical prescription
Stereotyping
business.industry
Social distance
Opioid use disorder
Opioid-Related Disorders
medicine.disease
Analgesics, Opioid
Substance abuse
Psychiatry and Mental health
Vignette
Family medicine
Female
business
Patient education
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 15470164 and 08897077
- Volume :
- 42
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Substance Abuse
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....daa3dbcef276df67956cffc1ec777a17