Abstract
BackgroundWe aim to describe the general characteristics of how the Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail reports on opioid-related news, the opioid crisis and its victims, and explore how Canadians’ perceptions of the opioid crisis could have developed over time from this reporting. The Globe and Mail has the highest circulation among Canadian newspapers and is Canada’s newspaper of record.MethodsReviewers performed independent, blinded bibliometric searches of all The Globe and Mail articles archived in the Canadian Periodicals Index Quarterly spanning an 18-year period (1 January 2000–1 June 2018) related to the keywords “opioids” or “drugs and opioids” and “opiates”. Independently and in duplicate, reviewers manually extracted qualitative data from articles and identified emergent themes. Articles were screened independently by both reviewers based on the inclusion criteria. Conflicts were resolved by discussion and consensus. Social representation theory was used as a framework for describing how the opioid crisis is portrayed in Canada.ResultsOur search yielded 650 relevant opioid articles. The number of articles peaked in 2009, 2012, and in 2016, coinciding with major developments in the epidemic. The language used in this discourse has evolved over the years and has slowly shifted towards less stigmatizing language. Content analysis of the articles revealed common social representations attributing responsibility to pharmaceutical companies, physicians, and foreign countries.ConclusionsThe Globe and Mail’s coverage of the opioid crisis is focused on basic social representations and attributed responsibility for the crisis to a few collectives. A shift toward coverage of the root causes of the opioid epidemic could positively influence the general public’s perception of the opioid crisis and promote deeper understanding of the issue. Journalists face several obstacles to achieve greater focus and framing of the opioid crisis; a closer working relationship between the media and the research community is needed.
Highlights
Since the late 1990s, there has been a considerable increase in the use of prescription opioids for the relief of chronic pain [1]
This study sought to: (1) describe general characteristics of how The Globe and Mail reports on opioid-related news, the opioid crisis and its victims and (2) explore how Canadians’ perceptions of the opioid crisis could have been impacted by a prominent source of Canadian news media using the framework of social representation theory
News reports and editorials were typically centered around statements of risk or criminal activity, while the anecdotes and opinion-based stories tended to focus on the far-reaching implications of opioid dependence from either the patient or the healthcare provider perspective
Summary
Since the late 1990s, there has been a considerable increase in the use of prescription opioids for the relief of chronic pain [1]. North America is witnessing an ever-increasing rate of opioid misuse contributing to substantial drug-related harms, including dependence and both fatal and non-fatal overdose. Canadians are the second-highest per-capita consumers of opioids in the world, after only the United States [2], and opioid misuse has become a public health issue of national concern [9]. This trend is aligned with a growing rate of nonmedical prescription opioid use in Canada since 1999 [2]. The Globe and Mail has the highest circulation among Canadian newspapers and is Canada’s newspaper of record
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