ABSTRACT

Drug overdose is a leading cause of injury and death in the United States, and opioids are among the most significant of causes. For people with opioid use disorders (OUDs), opioid stigma can lead to devastating consequences, including anxiety and depression. Still, mass media may stigmatize people with OUDs by ascribing stigmatizing labels (e.g., “opioid addict”) and other stigma features to those individuals. However, it is unclear how these stigmatizing messages influence public perceptions of people with OUDs and public support for rehabilitation and Naloxone administration policies. The model of stigma communication (MSC) provides a framework for understanding these relationships. This study used the MSC in two online factorial experiments, the first among college undergraduates (N = 231) and the second among Amazon Mechanical Turk workers (N = 245), to examine how stigmatizing messages about people with OUDs influence stigma-related outcomes. Results reveal that opioid stigma messages influence different outcomes depending on the content of those messages. Classification messages with a stigmatizing mark (e.g., “Alex appears unkempt”) and label (e.g., “opioid addict”) led to greater perceptions of dangerousness and threat in both studies. High stigma classification messages also led to an increased desire for behavioral regulation and social distance in Study 2. Structural equation modeling in Study 1 also supported the applicability of the MSC in the opioid context. Implications for health communication theory development and practice are discussed.

摘要

药物过量是美国伤害和死亡的主要原因，阿片类药物是最重要的原因之一。对于患有阿片类药物使用障碍 (OUD) 的人来说，阿片类药物的耻辱会导致毁灭性的后果，包括焦虑和抑郁。尽管如此，大众媒体可能会通过给这些人贴上污名化的标签（例如，“阿片类药物成瘾者”）和其他污名化特征来污名化 OUD 患者。然而，尚不清楚这些污名化信息如何影响公众对 OUD 患者的看法以及公众对康复和纳洛酮管理政策的支持。耻辱传播模型 (MSC) 为理解这些关系提供了一个框架。本研究在两个在线析因实验中使用了 MSC，第一个是在大学本科生中进行的 ( N= 231)，第二个是 Amazon Mechanical Turk 工人 ( N = 245)，以研究关于 OUD 患者的污名化信息如何影响污名化相关结果。结果表明，阿片类药物的耻辱信息会根据这些信息的内容影响不同的结果。在这两项研究中，带有污名化标记（例如，“亚历克斯看起来蓬头垢面”）和标签（例如，“阿片类药物成瘾者”）的分类信息导致了对危险和威胁的更大认识。在研究 2 中，高度耻辱分类信息也导致对行为调节和社会距离的渴望增加。研究 1 中的结构方程模型也支持 MSC 在阿片类药物背景下的适用性。讨论了健康传播理论发展和实践的意义。