Urban Residents Attitudes Towards People With Drug Abuse in Five Districts of Concepcion Commune, Chile

Abstract

Objective: to analyze the attitudes of residents in an urban commune of Concepción, Chile towards people with drug abuse according to drug type, personal experience and socio-demographic variables. Method: descriptive and cross-sectional study that examines the attitude of 121 people of five census districts of commune of Concepción, Chile, regarding who has abuse of four types of drugs: alcohol, marijuana, cocaine and base paste, and its relation with socio-demographic variables, personal experience, drug type, using the Multidimensional Inventory of Attitudes. Results: ambivalent attitudes are observed towards those who abuses of alcohol and marijuana; on the other hand, attitude is negative towards those who abuse of cocaine and base paste. Female gender and religiosity were significantly associated with negative attitudes and young adults presented more ambivalent and less negative attitudes than middle-aged adults and older did. Personal experience is significantly related only if people that abuse of marijuana and cocaine are known. Conclusion: it is concluded that ambivalent and negative attitudes prevail towards people who abuse of drugs, what constitutes an obstacle to access treatment and social integration. It is necessary to keep investigating about attitudes, social distance and personal contact in order to elaborate strategies that allow to address stigma and discrimination towards those who present drug abuse in Chile

The associations of religious affiliation, religious service attendance, and religious leader norm with support for protective versus punitive drug policies: A look at the states affected by the rural opioid epidemic in the United States.

“…On the one hand, 12-steps programs that meet in churches have gained high levels of popularity and provide positive support for people trying to stop using substances (Giannelli et al, 2019). On the other, more religious people have negative attitudes toward drug users (Jara-Concha & Cumsille, 2019) and lower support for protective policies (Gebelhoff, 2019). According to Szott (2020), this opposition stems from a moral model of addiction, which increases drug use stigma and blocks key initiatives like the provision of sterile syringes for disease prevention, or the use of medication as a part of SUD treatment.…”