BackgroundNew psychoactive substances (NPS) have been increasingly consumed by people who use drugs in recent years, which pose a new challenge for treatment services. One of the largest groups of NPS is synthetic cannabinoids (SCs), which are intended as a replacement to cannabis. While there is an increasing body of research on the motivation and the effects associated with SC use, little is known about the subjective interpretation of SC use by the people who use drugs themselves. The aim of this study was to examine the experiences and personal interpretations of SC use of users who were heavily dependent on SC and are in treatment.MethodsA qualitative research method was applied in order to explore unknown and personal aspects of SC use. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six participants who had problematic SC use and entered treatment. The research was conducted in Hungary in 2015. We analyzed data using interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA).ResultsParticipants perceived SCs to be unpredictable: their initial positive experiences quickly turned negative. They also reported that SCs took over their lives both interpersonally and intrapersonally: the drug took their old friends away, and while initially it gave them new ones, in the end it not only made them asocial but the drug became their only friend, it hijacked their personalities and made them addicted.ConclusionsParticipants experienced rapid development of effects and they had difficulties interpreting or integrating these experiences. The rapid alteration of effects and experiences may explain the severe psychopathological symptoms, which may be important information for harm reduction and treatment services. Since, these experiences are mostly unknown and unpredictable for people who use SCs, a forum where they could share their experiences could have a harm reducing role. For a harm reduction point of view of SCs, which are underrepresented in literature, it is important to emphasize the impossibility of knowing the quantity, purity, or even the number of different SC compounds in a particular SC product. Our study findings suggest that despite the adverse effects, including a rapid turn of experiences to negative, rapid development of addiction and withdrawal symptoms of SCs, participants continued using the drug because this drug was mostly available and cheap. Therefore, a harm reduction approach would be to make available and legal certain drugs that have less adverse effects and could cause less serious dependence and withdrawal symptoms, with controlled production and distribution (similarly to cannabis legalization in the Netherlands).

Applying self-help group in clinical context contributes to better outcomes in treatment of voice hearers.

Szakirodalmi összefoglaló tanulmányunkban az interpretatív fenomenológiai analízist (IPA) mutatjuk be. A módszert elsősorban kvalitatív pszichológiai kutatásokban alkalmazzák. A tanulmányban összefoglaljuk az IPA fenomenológiai és hermeneutikai alapjait. Kiemeljük az IPA idiográfiai alkalmazását, ami egyben a módszer erőssége: részletgazdag bemutatást tesz lehetővé, kis létszámú, homogén vizsgálati személyek esetén. Ismertetjük azokat a különbségeket, amelyek más fenomenológiai módszerektől megkülönböztetik az IPA-t. Bemutatjuk az IPA alkalmazását: a kutatói kérdés, a mintaválasztás, az interjúkészítés és az interjúátiratok fenomenológiai interpretációjának lépései segítségével. Kitérünk a validitás kérdésére és ismertetjük a módszer gyakorlati korlátait (kis minta) és episztemológiai kockázatait (az interpretációnak nincsenek objektíven ellenőrizhető kritériumai). Végül, néhány IPA-kutatást mutatunk be, ezekkel érzékeltetve a módszer kvalitatív pszichológiai használhatóságát: a krónikus betegség tapasztalatát, a pszichoaktív anyaghasználatot, a függőséget és a felépülést. Az IPA középponti témája az énhez, illetve az identitáshoz való viszonyulás változása.

Our conceptual framework helps to develop a proper intervention specific to healthcare. Orv. Hetil., 2017, 158(16), 625-632.

The combination of power and conflict is frequently reported to have a detrimental impact on communication and on patient care, and it is avoided and perceived negatively by health care professionals. In view of recent recommendations to explicitly address power and conflict in health professions education, adopting more constructive approaches toward power and conflict may be helpful. Method The authors used social bases of power (positional, expert, informational, reward, coercive, referent) identified in the literature to examine the role of power in conflicts between health care professionals in different cultural settings. They drew upon semistructured interviews conducted from 2013 to 2016 with 249 health care professionals working at health centers in the United States, Switzerland, and Hungary, in which participants shared stories of conflict they had experienced with coworkers. The authors used a directed approach to content analysis to analyze the data. Results The social bases of power tended to be comparable across sites and included positional, expert, and coercive power. The rigid hierarchies that divide health care professionals, their professions, and their specialties contributed to negative experiences in conflicts. In addition, the presence of an audience, such as supervisors, coworkers, patients, and patients' families, prevented health care professionals from addressing conflicts when they occurred, resulting in conflict escalation.