Efficacy of Clinician Education on the Americans With Disabilities Act for People With Opioid Use Disorder-A Prospective Study.

Abstract

Objectives: Medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD) is a standard of care for mortality-reducing treatment for people with opioid use disorder (OUD). Some health care settings have blanket policies forbidding MOUD treatment, which can increase mortality risk and violate the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Clinicians are not routinely educated on the ADA as it applies to OUD.

Methods: This prospective survey study conducted in 2023 evaluates clinicians' knowledge, attitudes and current clinical practice before and after a 1-hour educational intervention (interactive didactic session) focused on patients with OUD who are experiencing discrimination under the ADA for being in MOUD treatment.

Results: Seventy-nine participants were invited to participate in the study; 84.8% completed the baseline survey and 60.8% completed both surveys. Before the intervention, participants identified understanding the protections for people with OUD under the ADA as important (38.3%) or extremely important (57.5%). Yet, the minority (17.4%) felt they were able to identify a potential ADA violation or knew how to report one (13.1%). After the intervention, the majority of participants (99.6%) were confident in identifying potential ADA violations, knew how to report them (97.9%), and reported intent to report potential violations (89.3%).

Conclusions: Education on the ADA as it applies to people with OUD significantly increased participants' self-reported ability to identify and willingness to report ADA violations (P < 0.001). More research is needed to assess whether education translates into increased reporting and sustained clinical practice change.