Clients or colleagues? Reflections on the process of participatory action research with young injecting drug users |
| |
| Institution: | 1. School of Public Health and Community Medicine, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia;2. National Centre in HIV Epidemiology and Clinical Research and School of Public Health and Community Medicine, The University of New South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia;1. School of Applied Social Sciences, University College Dublin, Ireland;2. Policy, Evaluation and Content Coordination Unit, European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction, Lisbon, Portugal;1. Department of Psychiatry, Yale School of Medicine, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06510, USA;2. Harvard Business School and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA;3. Department of Pathology, Brigham and Women''s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA;1. Harm Reduction Victoria, P.O. Box 12720, A’Beckett Street, Melbourne, Victoria 8006, Australia;2. Centre for Social Research in Health (CSRH), University of New South Wales (NSW), Sydney, Australia;1. Division of Pharmaceutical Outcomes and Policy, UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC;2. Department of Health Behavior and Policy, Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine, Richmond, Va;3. Alexor LLC, Morrisville, NC;4. Division of General Internal Medicine and Clinical Epidemiology, School of Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC;5. Department of Science and Mathematics, Husson University, Bangor, Maine;6. Division of Pediatric Pulmonology, School of Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC;7. Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC |
| |
| Abstract: | Few published reports have explored the potential for participatory action research (PAR) with injecting drug users (IDUs) that extends their role beyond consultation, facilitating recruitment or conducting peer-driven interventions. We reflect on the process of conducting a participatory needs assessment of young IDUs who do not access drug health services using qualitative methods. This report draws on formal feedback obtained from the research teams, which comprised both peer and health workers, and informal observations made by the university researchers, to describe the benefits and challenges inherent in implementing this approach. Results indicate that the privileged access of peer workers to hidden IDUs and sensitive information improved the quality of the data. The PAR approach was also instrumental in changing the negative attitudes of health workers towards IDU and peer involvement in service delivery, an important first step towards meaningful consumer participation. However, the success of peer involvement is dependent on the extent to which health workers are willing to accept IDUs as colleagues rather than clients. We suggest that the capacity of peer workers to undertake these roles needs to be judged according to performance-based criteria that regards their injecting drug use experience as a legitimate form of expertise. |
| |
| Keywords: | |
| 本文献已被 ScienceDirect 等数据库收录！ |
|
