Abstract
Background: Access to and quality of care for Substance Use Disorders (SUDs) remain a major public health issue. Stigma associated with SUDs contributes to the gap between the number of patients who need treatment and the much smaller fraction that receive it. Healthcare professional students are future care providers; an opportunity exists to characterize their collective perspectives on patients with SUDs and how that informs the care they provide. Methods: Healthcare professional students participated in online, semi-structured focus group (FGs) between March and April 2021. The FGs were conducted until thematic saturation was achieved. All verbatim transcripts were analyzed applying Thematic Analysis using Dedoose® qualitative software. Inductive codes were grouped into categories based on similarities that facilitated the emergence of themes. Results: Thematic Analysis revealed one theme (1) Decreasing stigma among healthcare professionals by viewing substance use disorder as a disease; and two sub-themes: Subtheme 1a: Relating with the patients, “It could be me…”; Subtheme 1b: Interactions with patients, “We just don’t know exactly how to counsel these patients…” These themes describe how future healthcare professionals might perceive and approach patients with SUDs and highlight the importance of SUD training in the curriculum. Conclusion: Medical and pharmacy students are uniquely positioned to apply critical thinking from their didactic training to their real-world clinical experiences, and their collective perspectives inform gaps in training and opportunities to develop best practices for SUD care. An opportunity exists to leverage these findings in order to train future healthcare professionals to ensure access to and quality of SUD care.
Highlights
Introduction iationsAccess to and quality of care for Substance Use Disorders (SUDs) remains a major public health issue
The majority of the participants (n = 17) were from the College of Pharmacy (COP) and14 were from the College of Medicine (COM)
Participants in this study discussed their perspectives on managing SUD patients, and medical and pharmacy students tend to be aware of the presence of stigma and the barrier it can present in being able to optimally care for patients
Summary
Introduction iationsAccess to and quality of care for Substance Use Disorders (SUDs) remains a major public health issue. Administration (SAMHSA) indicates that approximately 14.9% of persons 12 years or older needed treatment in the last year, but only 1.4% received any treatment [1]. This highlights the large gap that exists between patients who need treatment and those who receive it. The coronavirus pandemic has exacerbated drug overdose deaths in the United States, with an estimated 30% increase from October 2019 to October 2020 in opioid-involved overdose deaths [2]. This situation is Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland
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