Risk perceptions and recovery threats for clients with a history of methadone maintenance therapy dropout

ABSTRACT

Background: Methadone treatment is one of the opioid substitution therapies (OSTs) used to manage opioid use disorder (OUD). Clients on methadone treatment experience a high attrition rate from OST programs due to diverse barriers such as access to methadone treatment, treatment modality, transportation, and stigma.

Methods: The aim of this project is to explore the experiences and perspectives of clients on methadone treatment who had previously dropped out of an OST program. We used an explorative qualitative design to interview 22 participants currently receiving methadone treatment at a clinic in a small city in western Canada.

Results: Four phases designated as critical moments in their lives were identified from their narratives: 1) pre-addiction phase; 2) early substance use; 3) first methadone treatment; and 4) methadone treatment failure and reenrollment.

Conclusion: Understanding clients’ experiences on OST treatment and presenting them temporally on a prevention-rehabilitation continuum expands possibilities for community-based interventions focussing on the individual, their family, and the community on substance use prevention, harm reduction activities, and supported treatment and recovery.

KEYWORDS:

• opiate use disorder
• opiate substitution therapy
• risk perception
• recovery threat

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the College of Nursing, University of Saskatchewan [419054].