Perspectives of healthcare workers about the delivery and evaluation of harm reduction services for people living with HIV who use substances

Figures & data

Table 1. Survey domains: Harm reduction from a healthcare worker’s perspective

• Participant characteristics (e.g. job title, years worked with people who use drugs, years working in an environment with HR embedded, hours of formal HR training, frequency of providing care to substance using clients) • Comfort with providing care to substance using clients • Attitudes about the HR policy in their setting • Perceived positive and negative client outcomes attributed to the HR approach • Challenges experienced providing healthcare using a harm reduction approach • Perceived importance of outcome indicators for healthcare services provided within a harm reduction, including health outcomes (e.g. overdose, skin abscesses), risk behaviour (e.g. binge drug use), social outcomes (e.g. housing status at discharge), healthcare utilization following discharge (e.g. primary care, needle and syringe programs); mental health (e.g. cognitive function) • Perceived value of varied program evaluation methods (e.g. surveys, focus groups) • Key messages that a harm reduction policy in a healthcare setting should include

Table 2. Participant characteristics

Characteristic	N (%/SD)
Organization
Dr. Peter Centre	33 (52%)
Casey House	31 (48%)
Role in organization
Nurse	27 (42%)
Other allied health professional	17 (27%)
Other	11 (17%)
Social worker/counsellor	6 (9%)
Support staff	3 (5%)
Hours of formal harm reduction training
0–2 h	10 (16%)
2–5 h	10 (16%)
5–10 h	17 (27%)
10–20 h	8 (12%)
>20 h	16 (25%)
Don’t remember/missing	3 (5%)
Years experience in a harm reduction focused organization	6.3 years (SD = 4.6)

Figure 1. Healthcare workers’ agreement with statements related to comfort and perceptions of harm reduction.

Figure 2. Healthcare workers ratings of importance of 22 outcomes commonly used to evaluate a HR program or intervention.