Using Positive Empathy Interventions to Reduce Stigma Toward People Who Inject Drugs

Abstract

People who inject drugs are often the target of stigma that puts this already at-risk group at greater risk of harm. Past research has shown that holding stigmatizing views of people who inject drugs increases risky behaviors and is a barrier to their engagement in important medical and public health interventions. One explanation is that the negativity surrounding the group causes increased levels of anticipated emotional exhaustion, discouraging positive engagement. However, there has been minimal research focused on addressing this negativity to reduce levels of held stigma against people who inject drugs. We hypothesized that giving people an imagined positive contact exercise about people who inject would lead to a reduction in stigma, since exposure to positive empathy may create new mental associations between stigmatized groups and more positive emotions and experiences. Secondarily, we hypothesized that positive empathy strategies would be more effective than traditional informational or learning based techniques, and that the latter would be more effective than a control condition. Our sample consisted of 375 participants recruited online. Participants were assigned to one of three study conditions: a positive empathy condition, an informational learning condition, or a control condition, and completed a posttest social distance measure. Results demonstrated that subjects exposed to the positive empathy stigma reduction condition experienced a significant reduction in held stigma while participants exposed to traditional informational learning techniques showed no significant reduction in held stigma. Positive empathy-based stigma interventions should be further researched as a promising avenue to reduce the effects of drug-related stigma.

Exploring the question of financial incentives for training amongst non-adopters of MOUD in rural primary care

“…Contact and mixed contact-education interventions seem to be the most effective, including with respect to mental health stigma [ 28 , 29 ], although some studies do not support that assertion [ 30 ]. One promising stigma reduction technique for OUD is positive empathy inventions, which has been studied in the form of an imagined positive contact interaction [ 31 ].…”

“…However, it is not known if incentivizing primary care physicians for MOUD immersion training is feasible or acceptable. Stigma interventions, such as immersion training could be combined with other stigma reducing interventions such as positive empathy inventions which has been found to have positive effects on reducing stigma to individuals with OUD [ 31 ]. This work lays the groundwork for design of future stigma reduction interventions in W.V however it is not known which interventions would be best delivered and how.…”

Medical cannabis and stigma: A qualitative study with patients living with chronic pain

“…Some of this may relate to how MC use is talked about and handled in social encounters with people who do not use MC and thus focus on enacted stigma. Yet, the current study suggests that more focus should be on addressing felt stigma and thus focus is needed on the intrapersonal level in addition to the interpersonal, organisational/institutional, community and governmental/structural level (Clinton & Pollini, 2021;Luoma et al, 2008).…”

“…Some of this may relate to how MC use is talked about and handled in social encounters with people who do not use MC and thus focus on enacted stigma. Yet, the current study suggests that more focus should be on addressing felt stigma and thus focus is needed on the intrapersonal level in addition to the interpersonal, organizational/institutional, community and governmental/structural level (Clinton & Pollini, 2021; Luoma et al, 2008). While there has been a great deal of work related to understanding stigma and its consequences, far less attention has been placed on assessing effectiveness of stigma reduction interventions (Committee on the Science of Changing Behavioral Health Social Norms Board on Behavioral, 2016).…”

Adaptación y validación de la Escala Disposicional de Empatía Positiva a población adolescente argentina

“…En cuanto a la vinculación de estos constructos, existen diversos estudios que informan una asociación positiva y de carácter moderado entre la empatía positiva y negativa (Gable et al, 2006;Sallquist et al, 2009). Por lo tanto, es posible afirmar que, si bien estos constructos están relacionados, son diferentes entre sí (Clinton & Pollini, 2021;Duan, 2000).…”