The Article in Brief
'Meeting People Where They�re At': Experiences of Family Physicians Engaging Women Who Use Illicit Drugs
Susan Woolhouse , and colleagues
Background This study explores family physicians' experiences of providing care to women using illicit drugs in order to better understand how to engage the women in the patient-physician relationship.
What This Study Found Exploring 10 family physicians� experiences, researchers identified a two-phase process of relationship development. First is an initial engagement phase that attempts to build relationships from a tenuous starting point of patients� difficult past experiences. This phase requires trust and presence and can lead to a maintenance phase, which requires continuity and finding common ground.
Implications
- Improving physicians� ability to engage women who use illicit drugs in the patient-physician relationship has implications for improving the women's overall health.
- Strong patient-physician relationships, the authors assert, are especially important for marginalized women, such as those who use illicit drugs.