The Elm

Wimberly, Sacco, Tennor, Murray-Brown, and Arikat Published Paper on Stigma and Opioid Use Disorder

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Alexandra Wimberly and a team from the School of Social Work (Sacco, Tennor, Murray-Browne and Arikat) conducted a study exploring stigmatizing attitudes among social work students. Using vignettes, they tested whether stigma differed according to the characteristics of people with opioid use disorder (i.e., race, gender, legal system involvement, drug administration, and treatment adherence). They found significantly more stigmatizing attitudes toward people with opioid use disorder who inject heroin versus use oxycodone and who do not always take buprenorphine as prescribed versus always takes buprenorphine as prescribed. They did not identify differences based on gender, race, or other characteristics. These findings suggest that anti-stigma efforts with students should focus on adherence issues and route of administration.

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/1533256X.2022.2103982