Kelly John F, Simpson Hazel
Recovery Research Institute, Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Harvard University.
Psychol Addict Behav. 2025 Apr 7. doi: 10.1037/adb0001066.
In addiction-focused clinical and public health communications intended to educate the public, assumptions are made regarding in which specific knowledge aspects the target population is deficient, so these can be emphasized and harms minimized. It is rare, however, that outreach campaign messaging is based on specific known knowledge deficits. This lack of information can lead to prevention and intervention messaging that not only fails to gain target audiences' attention but can produce unintended consequences. Greater knowledge about information deficits could enhance the impact of addiction-specific health campaigns.
Cross-sectional investigation involving members of the public ( = 1,257) sampled via the Prolific platform. Participants listed their top 10 questions pertaining to one of six different types of addiction problems (addiction-general [ = 211], alcohol [ = 209], cannabis [ = 209], cocaine [ = 211], opioids [ = 214], gambling [ = 209]). Results were categorized using qualitative thematic and grounded theory and ranked according to proportional frequency.
Types of questions asked fell into nine domains (e.g., etiology, clinical characterization and course, drug characteristics, pharmacology) and subdomains, with topics varying substantially within addiction type (e.g., cannabis, opioids) across domains (e.g., etiology, treatment), as well as within domains across types. Differences in the proportion of types of questions asked across and within domains were highly variable differing across addiction types (i.e., cannabis, opioids, gambling).
Findings have implications for clinical and public health campaigns helping to highlight more precisely the exact nature and extent of potential population-level knowledge deficits across specific addiction types. These might be prioritized and targeted in knowledge dissemination efforts for prevention and treatment engagement. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).
在旨在教育公众的以成瘾为重点的临床和公共卫生宣传中，会对目标人群在哪些特定知识方面存在不足做出假设，以便能够强调这些方面并将危害降至最低。然而，外展活动信息很少基于已知的特定知识缺陷。这种信息匮乏可能导致预防和干预信息不仅无法吸引目标受众的注意力，还可能产生意想不到的后果。对信息缺陷有更多了解可以增强针对成瘾问题的健康宣传活动的影响力。
通过Prolific平台对公众成员（n = 1257）进行横断面调查。参与者列出了与六种不同类型成瘾问题之一相关的前10个问题（成瘾一般问题[n = 211]、酒精[n = 209]、大麻[n = 209]、可卡因[n = 211]、阿片类药物[n = 214]、赌博[n = 209]）。使用定性主题和扎根理论对结果进行分类，并根据比例频率进行排名。
所提出的问题类型分为九个领域（例如，病因、临床特征和病程、药物特征、药理学）和子领域，不同成瘾类型（例如，大麻、阿片类药物）在各领域（例如，病因、治疗）以及各领域内不同类型之间的主题差异很大。各领域之间和领域内所提出问题类型的比例差异高度可变，因成瘾类型（即大麻、阿片类药物、赌博）而异。
研究结果对临床和公共卫生宣传活动具有启示意义，有助于更准确地突出特定成瘾类型潜在人群层面知识缺陷的具体性质和程度。在预防和治疗参与的知识传播工作中，可以对这些方面进行优先排序和针对性处理。（PsycInfo数据库记录（c）2025美国心理学会，保留所有权利）
