Traditional, Alternative, and Harm Reduction Approaches: What Do Social Work Students Think?

Abstract

How social workers conceptualize substance use disorder (SUD) treatment will affect the types of interventions that they select, including the use of harm reduction strategies. An amended version of the Treatment Attitudes Scale–Revised was given to 280 social work students (graduate and undergraduate) along with 30 SUD counselors. The results indicated that all 3 groups in the sample scored similarly, with endorsing traditional methods as beneficial, blood-borne disease prevention and alternative methods as somewhat beneficial, and overdose fatality prevention methods as somewhat harmful. Implications for curriculum development and in-service training are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• attitudes
• harm reduction
• substance use
• treatment models