Clinton Alex J, Pollini Robin A
School of Medicine, West Virginia University, Morgantown, WV, United States.
Front Psychol. 2021 Jul 9;12:616729. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.616729. eCollection 2021.
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.
注射毒品的人常常成为污名化的对象，这使得这个本就处于高危状态的群体面临更大的伤害风险。过去的研究表明，对注射毒品者持有污名化观点会增加危险行为，并且是他们参与重要医疗和公共卫生干预措施的障碍。一种解释是，围绕该群体的负面态度会导致预期的情绪耗竭水平上升，从而阻碍积极参与。然而，针对消除这种负面态度以减少对注射毒品者的污名化程度的研究极少。我们假设，让人们进行关于注射毒品者的想象中的积极接触练习会导致污名化程度降低，因为接触积极的同理心可能会在被污名化群体与更积极的情绪和经历之间建立新的心理关联。其次，我们假设积极的同理心策略比传统的基于信息或学习的技术更有效，并且后者比对照条件更有效。我们的样本由375名在线招募的参与者组成。参与者被分配到三种研究条件之一：积极同理心条件、信息学习条件或对照条件，并完成了一项测试后的社会距离测量。结果表明，处于积极同理心污名化减少条件下的受试者所持有污名显著减少，而接触传统信息学习技术的参与者所持有污名没有显著减少。基于积极同理心的污名干预措施作为减少与毒品相关污名影响的一条有前景的途径，应进一步开展研究。
