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Staff experiences of encountering and treating outpatients with substance use disorder in the psychiatric context: a qualitative study

BACKGROUND: High comorbidity exists between mental illness and substance use disorders (SUD). Patients in psychiatry living with problematic alcohol or drug consumption can experience a sense of exclusion, where seeking help for SUD can be perceived as stigmatizing. The aim of this study is to illum...

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Autores principales: Petersén, Elisabeth, Thurang, Anna, Berman, Anne H.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8112046/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33971959
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13722-021-00235-9
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author Petersén, Elisabeth
Thurang, Anna
Berman, Anne H.
author_facet Petersén, Elisabeth
Thurang, Anna
Berman, Anne H.
author_sort Petersén, Elisabeth
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: High comorbidity exists between mental illness and substance use disorders (SUD). Patients in psychiatry living with problematic alcohol or drug consumption can experience a sense of exclusion, where seeking help for SUD can be perceived as stigmatizing. The aim of this study is to illuminate staff experiences of encountering patients with SUD within the psychiatric outpatient context. METHODS: The study was exploratory, with a qualitative design. Interviews with outpatient psychiatry managers and focus groups with clinical staff focused on the experience of encountering patients with SUD. Data were evaluated using content analysis inspired by phenomenological-hermeneutic methodology. RESULTS: Three themes were identified and each illuminated by two sub-themes. Bridging the organizational gap included sub-themes of having an established collaboration and facing difficulties in the collaboration; Having beliefs about the patient you encounter included sub-themes of working with patients who are exposed to prejudicial thoughts and expressing prejudicial thoughts about the patient. Striving to achieve a therapeutic alliance included sub-themes of having a feeling of developing together and supporting the patient towards recovery. CONCLUSION: A life-world perspective, used to interpret results, indicated that caring for patients with SUD in psychiatry was perceived as difficult, where collaboration between psychiatry and addiction care was often experienced as problematic. Based on these findings, we believe that the current gap between the psychiatry and addiction care could be reduced to some extent by offering patients digital treatment for SUD. In this way, patients could remain under the care of their regular psychiatric clinic without having to physically visit SUD services. Thus, a virtual bridge could be established to bring psychiatry and addiction care closer to each other for the patients’ benefit. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13722-021-00235-9.
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spelling pubmed-81120462021-05-12 Staff experiences of encountering and treating outpatients with substance use disorder in the psychiatric context: a qualitative study Petersén, Elisabeth Thurang, Anna Berman, Anne H. Addict Sci Clin Pract Research BACKGROUND: High comorbidity exists between mental illness and substance use disorders (SUD). Patients in psychiatry living with problematic alcohol or drug consumption can experience a sense of exclusion, where seeking help for SUD can be perceived as stigmatizing. The aim of this study is to illuminate staff experiences of encountering patients with SUD within the psychiatric outpatient context. METHODS: The study was exploratory, with a qualitative design. Interviews with outpatient psychiatry managers and focus groups with clinical staff focused on the experience of encountering patients with SUD. Data were evaluated using content analysis inspired by phenomenological-hermeneutic methodology. RESULTS: Three themes were identified and each illuminated by two sub-themes. Bridging the organizational gap included sub-themes of having an established collaboration and facing difficulties in the collaboration; Having beliefs about the patient you encounter included sub-themes of working with patients who are exposed to prejudicial thoughts and expressing prejudicial thoughts about the patient. Striving to achieve a therapeutic alliance included sub-themes of having a feeling of developing together and supporting the patient towards recovery. CONCLUSION: A life-world perspective, used to interpret results, indicated that caring for patients with SUD in psychiatry was perceived as difficult, where collaboration between psychiatry and addiction care was often experienced as problematic. Based on these findings, we believe that the current gap between the psychiatry and addiction care could be reduced to some extent by offering patients digital treatment for SUD. In this way, patients could remain under the care of their regular psychiatric clinic without having to physically visit SUD services. Thus, a virtual bridge could be established to bring psychiatry and addiction care closer to each other for the patients’ benefit. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s13722-021-00235-9. BioMed Central 2021-05-10 2021 /pmc/articles/PMC8112046/ /pubmed/33971959 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13722-021-00235-9 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Petersén, Elisabeth
Thurang, Anna
Berman, Anne H.
Staff experiences of encountering and treating outpatients with substance use disorder in the psychiatric context: a qualitative study
title Staff experiences of encountering and treating outpatients with substance use disorder in the psychiatric context: a qualitative study
title_full Staff experiences of encountering and treating outpatients with substance use disorder in the psychiatric context: a qualitative study
title_fullStr Staff experiences of encountering and treating outpatients with substance use disorder in the psychiatric context: a qualitative study
title_full_unstemmed Staff experiences of encountering and treating outpatients with substance use disorder in the psychiatric context: a qualitative study
title_short Staff experiences of encountering and treating outpatients with substance use disorder in the psychiatric context: a qualitative study
title_sort staff experiences of encountering and treating outpatients with substance use disorder in the psychiatric context: a qualitative study
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8112046/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33971959
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13722-021-00235-9
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