STIGMA ENIGMA

Make sure this point is clear for your patients, to avoid confusion.

Click here for previous newsletters.

1. Counselling Conundrum: a real question from a patient

2. Concise Conclusion: a straight-forward patient-friendly answer 

3. Quick Wrap-up 

Clearly, there are nuances that may not be captured in this format. The goal here is to provide you with helpful counselling tips which often draw from multiple sources or those which are not commonly accessed by busy healthcare providers serving the community.

Counselling Conundrum: "I am returning my T#3's to be destroyed, please take this naloxone kit as well; I don't want to be responsible for it anymore and it scares me."

Concise Conclusion: I understand, we can certainly take care of that for you. Please note that a naloxone kit is a handy thing to have even if you're not taking any narcotics, and having one on hand poses no danger to anyone. It's like having an EpiPen on hand just in case for an allergy, except for narcotic overdoses.

Quick Wrap-up: We have seen several patients terrified of naloxone kits, when if anything they should fear the narcotic. This is likely due to stigma around overdoses and narcotics, so clarifying this with patients can play an important role in dispelling myths and stigma. We tell our patients that they likely won't need it, but if someone (like a child) accidentally takes their narcotic thinking it was candy, this can save their life.

Dive Deeper

1) Layperson-Administered Naloxone Trends Reported in Emergency Medical Service Activations, 2020-2022 - PubMed

We hope you have found this useful. A reply to this email with any feedback or topic suggestion you may have would be greatly appreciated. Your input will be the key to making this newsletter the best it can be.