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Identifying the most common barriers to opioid agonist treatment in an Australian setting
journal contribution
posted on 2023-08-17, 01:58 authored by Natasha Hall, Long Le, Julie Abimanyi-OchomJulie Abimanyi-Ochom, Maree Teesson, Cathy MihalopoulosBACKGROUND: Opioid use disorder is a public health concern in Australia. Opioid agonist treatment (OAT) is effective at treating and minimising harm from opioid use disorder, yet is underused in Australia due to client barriers. Although these barriers have been reported, the barriers that are most important to clients is unclear. The aim of this paper was to determine the most important OAT barriers to Australian clients. METHODS: A cross-sectional, self-completed survey was given to 204 opioid-dependent clients who attended needle and syringe sites in Australia. Participants were given 15 OAT barrier statements, which they answered using a 5-point Likert scale (1=strongly disagree, 2=disagree, 3=neutral, 4=agree and 5=strongly agree). The Likert scale data are presented using the count method and the mean Likert scores (for the whole sample and for subgroups). RESULTS: The two methods determined that the four most important barriers to OAT were stigma, lack of support services, no flexibility and enjoy using opioids. Furthermore, those who used prescription opioids (compared with heroin) were female or non-binary (compared with male), were not currently using OAT (compared with current OAT), were younger (compared with older) and had high dependence scores (compared with low dependence scores) were impacted more by certain OAT barriers. CONCLUSIONS: Policies around improving support services, reducing stigma and increasing flexibility would be beneficial to reduce barriers to OAT in Australia. Second, certain groups were more vulnerable to OAT barriers, emphasising the importance to better tailor opioid treatment programs to these specific populations to increase treatment engagement.
History
Journal
AUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF PRIMARY HEALTHLocation
AustraliaPublisher DOI
ISSN
1448-7527eISSN
1836-7399Language
EnglishPublication classification
C1 Refereed article in a scholarly journalPublisher
CSIRO PUBLISHINGUsage metrics
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No categories selectedKeywords
Science & TechnologyLife Sciences & BiomedicineHealth Care Sciences & ServicesHealth Policy & ServicesPrimary Health CarePublic, Environmental & Occupational HealthGeneral & Internal MedicineAustraliabarriers to treatmentheroin dependenceLikert scale analysisneedle syringe sitesopioid agonist treatmentopioid use disorderprescription opioid dependenceSUBSTANCE USEHEROIN USERSINJECT DRUGSGLOBAL EPIDEMIOLOGYGENDER-DIFFERENCESUSE DISORDERMETHADONEDEPENDENCEPEOPLEWOMEN4203 Health Services and Systems42 Health SciencesPrescription Drug AbuseBrain DisordersSubstance MisuseDrug Abuse (NIDA only)3 Good Health and Well BeingMedical and Health SciencesStudies in Human SocietyPsychology and Cognitive Sciences32 Biomedical and clinical sciences42 Health sciences52 Psychology
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