Fisheries and Marine Institute, Memorial University of Newfoundland, W3023, 155 Ridge Road, St. John's, NL, A1C 5R3, Canada.
Addict Sci Clin Pract. 2024 Sep 29;19(1):70. doi: 10.1186/s13722-024-00504-3.
Scholarship on how fentanyl affects the complexities of correctional settings is limited in Canada, as scholars have focused on the prevalence of opioid use and overdose in prisons, as well as community treatment and access following release. Fentanyl constitutes a continuing challenge both in prisons and broader society.
The current qualitative, interview-based empirical study examines how fentanyl is interpreted by correctional officers (COs, n = 99) across federal prisons in Canada, some of whom have worked in institutions with a high presence of fentanyl, while others have less exposure to the drug. We found that while many COs had responded to an overdose during their first or second year on the job, most COs who had did not perceive the event to be psychologically traumatic nor were concerned about the presence and availability fentanyl in their work environment, or they were indifferent. Yet this finding competes with the 41.4% of officers who did express concern about the presence of fentanyl - suggesting both a "normalization" of fentanyl as a workplace hazard as well as an underpinning social concern.
We discuss the implications of these complicated findings in relation to reducing workplace stressors and countering misinformation that, in addition to other potential occupational factors, may be responsible for the concerns of COs tied to the presence of fentanyl.
在加拿大，关于芬太尼如何影响矫正环境复杂性的学术研究有限，学者们主要关注监狱中阿片类药物的使用和过量用药情况，以及释放后的社区治疗和获得情况。芬太尼在监狱和更广泛的社会中都是一个持续存在的挑战。
目前这项基于访谈的定性实证研究调查了加拿大联邦监狱的狱警（COs，n=99）如何解释芬太尼，其中一些人在芬太尼存在较高的机构中工作，而另一些人则较少接触这种药物。我们发现，虽然许多狱警在工作的头一两年就应对过一次或两次过量用药事件，但大多数狱警并没有将这些事件视为心理创伤，也不关心他们工作环境中芬太尼的存在和可获得性，或者他们对此漠不关心。然而，这一发现与 41.4%对芬太尼的存在表示担忧的狱警相矛盾——这表明芬太尼作为工作场所的危害已经“正常化”，同时也存在潜在的社会关注。
我们讨论了这些复杂发现对减少工作场所压力源和纠正错误信息的影响，除了其他潜在的职业因素外，这些压力源和错误信息可能是与芬太尼存在相关的狱警担忧的原因。
