"The Drug Use Unfortunately isn't all Bad": Chronic Disease Self-Management Complexity and Strategy Among Marginalized People Who Use Drugs.

ABSTRACT: Self-management programs improve health outcomes and self-management is recommended for chronic conditions. Yet chronic disease self-management supports have rarely been applied to people who use drugs (PWUD). Thus, our objective was to explore self-management experiences among marginalized PWUD. We used community-based participatory methods and conducted qualitative interviews. Participants self-identified as having long-term and past year experience using non-prescribed drugs, one other chronic condition, and socioeconomic marginalization. We analyzed the data using reflexive thematic analysis. Although many participants considered drug use a chronic health issue, self-medicating with non-prescribed drugs was also a key self-management strategy to address other health issues. Participant

SUBMITTER: Boucher LM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9189593 | biostudies-literature | 2022 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature