Adapting the Opening Minds Stigma Scale for Healthcare Providers to Measure Opioid-Related Stigma

Abstract

The opioid crisis in Canada continues to cause a devastating number of deaths. Community-based naloxone programs have been identified as one of the solutions for combatting this crisis; however, there are disparities in which pharmacies stock and offer naloxone. Opioid-related stigma is a major barrier for limited naloxone distribution through pharmacies. Therefore, the development of anti-stigma interventions is crucial to improve naloxone distribution in Canada. However, there is no validated tool to specifically measure opioid-related stigma. The Opening Minds Stigma Scale for Healthcare Providers (OMS-HC) is a validated scale used to measure mental illness-related stigma. This study will adapt the OMS-HC by using four different opioid-related terminologies to determine which is the most stigmatizing to use in an opioid-related anti-stigma intervention. Pharmacy students completed four versions of the adapted OMS-HC. The average OMS-HC scores and Cronbach’s α co-efficient were calculated for each version. The term “opioid addiction” was found to be the most stigmatizing term among participants and will be used in the adapted version of the OMS-HC in a future anti-stigma interventions.