- Title
- Waiting room ambience and provision of opioid substitution therapy in general practice
- Creator
- Holliday, Simon M.; Magin, Parker J.; Dunbabin, Janet S.; Ewald, Ben D.; Henry, Julie-Marie; Goode, Susan M.; Baker, Fran A.; Dunlop, Adrian J.
- Relation
- Medical Journal of Australia Vol. 196, Issue 6, p. 391-394
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.5694/mja11.11338
- Publisher
- Australasian Medical Publishing
- Resource Type
- journal article
- Date
- 2012
- Description
- Objective: To assess whether patients receiving opioid substitution therapy (OST) in general practice cause other patients sufficient distress to change practices — a perceived barrier that prevents general practitioners from prescribing OST. Design, setting and participants: A cross-sectional questionnaire-based survey of consecutive adult patients in the waiting rooms of a network of research general practices in New South Wales during August – December 2009. Main outcome measures: Prevalence of disturbing waiting room experiences where drug intoxication was considered a factor, discomfort about sharing the waiting room with patients being treated for drug addiction, and likelihood of changing practices if the practice provided specialised care for patients with opiate addiction. Results: From 15 practices (eight OST-prescribing), 1138 of 1449 invited patients completed questionnaires (response rate, 78.5%). A disturbing experience in any waiting room at any time was reported by 18.0% of respondents (203/1130), with only 3.1% (35/1128) reporting that drug intoxication was a contributing factor. However, 39.3% of respondents (424/1080) would feel uncomfortable sharing the waiting room with someone being treated for drug addiction. Respondents were largely unaware of the OST-prescribing status of the practice (12.1% of patients attending OST-prescribing practices [70/579] correctly reported this). Only 15.9% of respondents (165/1037) reported being likely to change practices if theirs provided specialised care for opiate-addicted patients. In contrast, 28.7% (302/1053) were likely to change practices if consistently kept waiting more than 30 minutes, and 26.6% (275/1033) would likely do so if consultation fees increased by $10. Conclusions: Despite the frequency of stigmatising attitudes towards patients requiring treatment for drug addiction, GPs’ concerns that prescribing OST in their practices would have a negative impact on other patients’ waiting room experiences or on retention of patients seem to be unfounded.
- Subject
- waiting rooms; general practitioners; opioid substitution therapy; patients
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1334402
- Identifier
- uon:27291
- Identifier
- ISSN:0025-729X
- Language
- eng
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