Alarming attitudinal barriers to help-seeking in drug-related emergency situations: Results from a Swedish online survey

BACKGROUND: New troublesome drug trends constitute a challenge for public health. Sweden has the second highest drug-related mortality rate in Europe. This calls for an investigation into the help-seeking attitudes of young adults to early middle-aged individuals asking how they would act in acute drug-related emergency or overdose situations. METHODS: In total, 1232 individuals completed an online survey promoted on Sweden’s largest discussion forum Flashback.org. Their free-text responses were analysed according to inductively generated categories. RESULTS: Around 60% of the sample would act as expected and contact emergency care without hesitation. However, approximately 32% of the sample showed palpable resistance and would put off seeking help and use emergency care only as a last resort due to, for example, fear of legal repercussions and stigma. Moreover, 8% displayed a total lack of confidence in public healthcare and would avoid it at all costs or entirely disregard it as an option due to the alleged risk of negative consequences and experienced restrictions on their personal freedom. CONCLUSIONS: While the inevitable criminalisation and stigmatisation associated with Sweden’s “zero tolerance” drug policy putatively serve as deterrents to drug use, our results demonstrate that these measures may also contribute to attitudes which discourage help-seeking. Such attitudes may at least partly explain the growing and comparatively high number of drug-induced deaths. Therefore, attitudinal and structural barriers to acute help-seeking in drug-related emergency situations should be acknowledged and investigated further in order to minimise harm.