Health care professionals under programmes for addictions. Personality characteristics of the patients, barriers to treatment and challenges

Abstract

Physicians have privileged information regarding the importance of leading a healthy and drug-free lifestyle, but in everyday reality, they are subject to extreme stressors (work stress, compassion fatigue, burnout syndrome) that have a profound emotional impact. As a result, it is not uncommon for physicians to present substance use disorders and dependencies. Recently, greater attention has been paid to specific factors that may lead to substance use disorder. Despite these efforts, there is a lack of prevention policies and substance use disorders are excluded in the list of occupational diseases. The idiosyncrasies of the tasks and particularities of the behavior of health care workers create a major challenge for the design of effective and safe programs for the health care professional with addictions and their patients. The objective of this work is to carry out an analytical review of the existing literature related to the implementation of specific treatments for health professionals to address SUD. After a tour of the mental health programs in place for health workers in different regions of the world and local resources, a discussion of current information on mental health disorders, as well as prevention and occupational health policies, is presented. In this population, the challenges that must be faced in our reality to create a specific treatment for this population are summarized.