(AUGUST 5, 2022) A new survey by UVM’s Center on Rural Addiction — which is headed by Stacey Sigmon, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry — working with the University of Southern Maine’s Cutler Institute highlights challenges in access to medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorders in Maine’s rural areas.
Stacey Sigmon, Ph.D.
(AUGUST 5, 2022) A new survey by UVM’s Center on Rural Addiction working with the University of Southern Maine’s Cutler Institute highlights how the challenges faced by providers and their patients undercut access to medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorders in Maine’s rural areas. Stacey Sigmon, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry, is director and principal investigator of the Center on Rural Addiction; Sarah Heil, Ph.D., professor of psychiatry, is associate director.
In particular, staffing and time constraints, barriers to access for patients — such as transportation, paid time off, and child care — as well as lack of social supports and care coordination, difficulties in getting patients to adhere to the requirements of treatment, and increasingly lethal drugs taken in combination with other substances are the practitioners' major concerns when it comes to providing care to rural patients. All respondents, but especially practitioners and people who worked in other community settings, said that stigma remains one of their primary concerns for why individuals do not seek out or remain in treatment for opioid use disorder.
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Sun Journal (Lewiston, Maine)