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Recognizing & Understanding Stereotypes and Bias to Improve Patient Care

Post-Test Choose your Path.PNGcare for the patient not the drug.

  • ExpresPost-Test s Learner-Read the overview and watch the short video on flipping your language to be more inclusive. 
  • Expert Learner-In addition, watch the fabulous TED talk about addiction. 

Overview 

Individuals coping with substance use disorders can face stigma from multiple places:

  • The outside public
  • Inside the recovery community
  • From within - they may have very low self-esteem and self-stigmatize
  • Treatment Providers

To provide the best care a provider should examine their beliefs about addiction. Take a personal inventory:

  • What are your personal beliefs about why people become addicted?

Do You believe:

  • Addiction to illicit drugs is different or worse than addiction to legal drugs?
  • Is it easier to recover from certain addictions than others?
  • Some people are beyond help?
  • Some people are doomed to a life of addiction because of their high-risk factors?
  • Certain drug treatment approaches are better than others?
  • Abstinence-based approaches are acceptable but maintenance programs are not—or vice versa?
  • That recovery must “look” a certain way?

Providing better care means

  • Suspending judgement
  • Watching language choices and not defining the person by their disorder
  • Not generalizing

Adapted from The Danya Institute and SAMHSA

Watch this brief video illustrating how slight changes in language can improve care

Video running time 1:04

    Optional Video-For Expert Learner Path 

    • Exceptional TED Talk "Everything you thought about addiction is wrong" 
      • Video running time 14:42

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY9DcIMGxMs&t=122s Links to an external site.

     

    “Words are important. If you want to care for something, you call it a ‘flower’; if you want to kill something, you call it a ‘weed’.” -Don Coyhis

    Field flowers_2

    STIGMA WALL-Edit the Page "Add One Way You Will End STIGMA in Your Practice" Click the edit button at the top right corner of the page. 

    • Seperate the patient from the addiction. It is a disease, not a choice.
    • Help them find human connections, be more availble to being someone's connection.
    • Bring it to other people's attention when they use language that is stigmatizing regardless of intent
    • Care for the patient, not the drug. Remembering that they are a person, not their disease or drug of choice. 
    • Employ humanism
    • Help them build resiliency
    • See the person, not the drug
    • Empathic presence
    • Recognize substance use is a spectrum of choice and functionality. Not every interaction with a client/patient/participant will result in referrals to get help, but every interaction with them is a chance to show that when they are ready, the client/patient/participant has a place to turn. 
    • Help them find purpose in their daily lives
    • Remind them that their addiction and past does not define them

    Links to an external site.