Acute care hospitals have been described as a high risk environment for people who use drugs (PWUD). Formal and informal bans on drug use can lead patients to conceal their use and consume under unsafe circumstances. Provision of hospital-based supervised consumption services (SCS) could help reduce drug-related harms and improve patient care. However, no peer-reviewed research documents patient experiences with attending SCS in this setting. To address this gap, the present study examines key factors that shape patients’ decisions to attend or not attend a novel SCS embedded within a large, urban acute care hospital in Western Canada.
Citation: Kosteniuk, B., Salvalaggio,G., McNeil, R., Brooks, H.L., Dong, K., Twan, S., Brouwer, J., & Hyshka, E. (2021). “You don’t have to squirrel away in a staircase”: Patient motivations for attending a novel supervised drug consumption service in acute care. International Journal of Drug Policy, 96. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugpo.2021.103275
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