Support for the psychosocial, disease and brain disease models of addiction: A survey of treatment providers' attitudes in Australia, the UK, and U.S.

Implications of addiction diagnosis and addiction beliefs for public stigma: A cross‐national experimental study

“…This finding is consistent with past research examining treatment providers endorsement of brain disease and disease MOA based on their geographical region [31]. Results from this past study suggests that there is greater endorsement of the brain disease and disease MOA from treatment providers in the USA in comparison to respondents in the United Kingdom and Australia [31]. Speculatively, these findings may be a reflection of relatively greater promotion of the disease MOA, and/or greater acceptance of medical treatment approaches in the USA.…”

“…Results supported greater acceptance of the disease MOA in the USA versus Canadian respondents. This finding is consistent with past research examining treatment providers endorsement of brain disease and disease MOA based on their geographical region [31]. Results from this past study suggests that there is greater endorsement of the brain disease and disease MOA from treatment providers in the USA in comparison to respondents in the United Kingdom and Australia [31].…”

“…Past studies have explored how beliefs in some of these models relate to perceived stigma as rated by clients and treatment providers [31][32][33][34][35][36][37], but few studies have focused on public stigma. This is notable given the prediction that beliefs in specific MOA might reduce public stigma towards individuals with AOD use disorders, which might improve treatment access for individuals with AOD problems [4][5][6][7][8].…”

Addiction Treatment Providers' Engagements with the Brain Disease Model of Addiction

“…There is growing evidence to suggest that viewing addiction as a brain disease is higher among US treatment providers in comparison to their counterparts in many other countries (Barnett, O'Brien et al, 2020;Russell et al, 2011). We speculate that there are several reasons that account for much of this difference.…”

“…Shedding light on the complexity of views across clinical workforces about the etiology of addiction, there are patterns between treatment providers' demographics and backgrounds, and their perspectives on what underlies addiction (Barnett, Hall et al, 2018a;Barnett, O'Brien et al, 2020). In particular, support for the disease model has been associated with treatment providers' age, year of qualification, being in recovery from an addiction problem, and, especially, whether treatment providers had a personal history of attending 12-step programs.…”