Perspectives of people with opioid use disorder on improving addiction treatments and services

Abstract

In North America, the recent increase in opioid-related deaths has highlighted a need to consult people with Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) on how to improve treatments, namely in terms of service access and patient retention. The aim of this study is to explore experiential perspectives on how to improve accessibility and retention in OUD treatments. Four focus groups were conducted with a total of 27 people with former or current OUD, from treatment programs and community organizations located in Montreal, Canada. A thematic analysis was carried out based on Paillé and Mucchielli’sprocedure, and yielded the following main themes: outreach, flexibility, treatment opportunities, quality of life, comprehensive services, relationship with caregivers and autonomy. These findings provide interesting avenues for policy makers, program administrators and healthcare workers, and may help improving treatment access and retention.

Keywords:

• Opioid use disorder
• treatment access
• treatment retention
• outreach
• experiential perspective

Acknowledgements

This research was funded in part by Health Canada Substance Use and Addictions Program (SUAP), the Ministère de la Santé et des Services sociaux du Québec, the Institut Universitaire sur les Dépendances, the Fondation du Centre de Réadaptation en Dépendances de Montréal and the Douglas Mental Health University Institute.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest is reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Low threshold services are designed to engage disorganized and socially marginalized patients, to ease the potential for self-harm, to reduce stigma and to eliminate barriers to treatment. They feature minimal requirements for admittance and compliance (Centre de Recherche et d’Aide pour Narcomanes, 2020; Perreault et al., 2015).