ABSTRACT

Often health communication campaigns addressing misusing prescription opioids and opioid use disorder (OUD) do not pay enough attention to the associated stigma. This study investigated the effectiveness of a well-designed opioid awareness campaign on reducing stigma and provided evidence for future health communication design. CDC’s Rx Awareness videos were used as the experiment material. 137 college students participated in this online experiment, and audience characteristics and video features were considered and tested. The results showed that Rx Awareness videos significantly reduced participants’ stigmatizing attitudes and perceived public stigma and increased their empathy toward people with OUD. Empathy is a promising strategy to reduce opioid stigma. People with an opioid prescription history expressed more empathy. Recovery information, prescription history, and narrators’ race influenced the audience’s perceived public stigma. Implications for health communications and limitations of the study are discussed.

摘要

通常，针对滥用处方阿片类药物和阿片类药物使用障碍 (OUD) 的健康宣传活动没有对相关的污名化给予足够的重视。本研究调查了精心设计的阿片类药物意识运动对减少耻辱感的有效性，并为未来的健康传播设计提供了证据。CDC 的 Rx Awareness 视频用作实验材料。137名大学生参与了本次在线实验，考虑并测试了受众特征和视频特征。结果表明，Rx Awareness 视频显着降低了参与者的污名化态度和感知到的公众污名，并增加了他们对患有 OUD 的人的同理心。同理心是减少阿片类药物耻辱感的一种很有前途的策略。有阿片类药物处方史的人表现出更多的同理心。恢复信息，处方历史和叙述者的种族影响了观众对公众的耻辱感。讨论了健康交流的意义和研究的局限性。