Patients’ satisfaction with heroin-assisted treatment: a qualitative study

Harm Reduction Journal

Research

Espen Ajo Arnevik¹  Rune Ellefsen¹  Linda Elise Couëssurel Wüsthoff² 

[1] Section for Clinical Addiction Research, Oslo University Hospital, PO Box 4959 Nydalen, 0424, Oslo, Norway;Section for Clinical Addiction Research, Oslo University Hospital, PO Box 4959 Nydalen, 0424, Oslo, Norway;The Norwegian Centre for Addiction Research, University of Oslo, PO Box 1039 Blindern, 0315, Oslo, Norway;

关键词: Heroin-assisted treatment;    Diacetylmorphine;    Opioid use disorder;    Patient satisfaction;    Qualitative research;    Socio-environmental factors;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12954-023-00808-8

 received in 2023-04-18, accepted in 2023-06-06,  发布年份 2023

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundHeroin-assisted treatment (HAT) involves supervised dispensing of medical heroin (diacetylmorphine) for people with opioid use disorder. Clinical evidence has demonstrated the effectiveness of HAT, but little is known about the self-reported satisfaction among the patients who receive this treatment. This study presents the first empirical findings about the patients’ experiences of, and satisfaction with, HAT in the Norwegian context.MethodsQualitative in-depth interviews with 26 patients in HAT were carried out one to two months after their enrollment. Analysis sought to identify the main benefits and challenges that the research participants experienced with this treatment. An inductive thematic analysis was conducted to identify the main areas of benefits and challenges. The benefits were weighed against the challenges in order to assess the participants’ overall level of treatment satisfaction.ResultsAnalysis identified three different areas of experienced benefits and three areas of challenges of being in this treatment. It outlines how the participants’ everyday lives are impacted by being in the treatment and how this, respectively, results from the treatment’s medical, relational, or configurational dimensions. We found an overall high level of treatment satisfaction among the participants. The identification of experienced challenges reveals factors that reduce satisfaction and thus may hinder treatment retention and positive treatment outcomes.ConclusionsThe study demonstrates a novel approach to qualitatively investigate patients’ treatment satisfaction across different treatment dimensions. The findings have implications for clinical practice by pointing out key factors that inhibit and facilitate patients’ satisfaction with HAT. The identified importance of the socio-environmental factors and relational aspect of the treatment has further implications for the provision of opioid agonist treatment in general.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© The Author(s) 2023