Voice in the discussion about the goals and methods of treatment in Poland of people addicted to opioids

• Authors: Banaszak, Maria

Abstracts

EN

For several years, a debate has been taking place in Poland on the effectiveness and appropriateness of using various methods of treating addiction to psychoactive substances. On one side there are representatives of rehabilitation centres with the assumptions of the therapeutic community, on the other side, advocates of substitution treatment, based on the paradigm of harm reduction. Substitute programs are usually conducted in outpatient clinics. Representatives of stationary treatment are accused that the endeavour of total abstinence is too difficult for patients to achieve; Substitutive programs are criticized for sustaining patients' addiction. At the bottom of the dispute, however, there are two logical errors. First, outpatient and stationary treatments are not competing because they meet the needs of different groups of clients and should be targeted at people who are at a different stage of addiction development. Secondly, non-counselling is the most appropriate place for substitution programs. Around the outpatient clinics, especially those who have a methadone program in their offer, are gathering patients in advance stages of addiction. The contact with people who do not take drugs in a problematic way has many negative consequences. In addition, it has been scientifically proven that benefiting from substitution programs results in harm reduction, but they are not accompanied by significant changes in social and emotional functioning. An optimal solution would be to reorganize substitution treatment and divide it into two streams, depending on the individual goal of the patient - those interested in the low-threshold goal - methadone prescription in out-of-ward care, and for those seeking actual change and abstinence – incorporating substitution programs into the therapeutic community.

Keywords

EN

drug addiction treatment; opioids; therapeutic community; substitution programs

• Publisher: Akademia Pedagogiki Specjalnej im. Marii Grzegorzewskiej. Wydawnictwo APS
• Journal: Problemy Opiekuńczo-Wychowawcze
• Year: 2018
• Volume: 570(5)
• Pages: 3-13

Dates

published

2018-06-22

Contributors

author

Banaszak, Maria

Identifiers

DOI

10.5604/01.3001.0012.1360