Using mindfulness to develop health education strategies for blood-borne virus prevention in injecting drug use

Aims: Prevention education has had limited success in reducing transmission of blood borne virus among people who inject drugs. Innovative approaches to prevention education are required. Method: This study used video recordings of injecting episodes and interviews with participants reviewing their...

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Main Authors: Treloar, C., Laybutt, B., Carruthers, Susan
Format: Journal Article
Published: Taylor and Francis 2009
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/7130
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author Treloar, C.
Laybutt, B.
Carruthers, Susan
author_facet Treloar, C.
Laybutt, B.
Carruthers, Susan
author_sort Treloar, C.
building Curtin Institutional Repository
collection Online Access
description Aims: Prevention education has had limited success in reducing transmission of blood borne virus among people who inject drugs. Innovative approaches to prevention education are required. Method: This study used video recordings of injecting episodes and interviews with participants reviewing their video recordings to explore the concept of mindlessness as a new tool for prevention education. Findings: The data demonstrate elements of mindlessness in participants’ injecting practice. Participants were unable to provide detailed description of their practice, could not recall the origin of their practices, described limited sensitivity to the environment around them and described learned behaviours ‘dropping out of mind’. Conclusions: Although potentially useful as a prevention tool, prevention messages using mindlessness concepts should be developed in collaboration with injecting drug users to avoid judgmental or alienating messages. Finally, the use of these video recordings themselves can be a powerful education tool given the very hidden and stigmatized nature of injecting drug use.
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institution Curtin University Malaysia
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publishDate 2009
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spelling curtin-20.500.11937-71302017-09-13T16:02:18Z Using mindfulness to develop health education strategies for blood-borne virus prevention in injecting drug use Treloar, C. Laybutt, B. Carruthers, Susan Aims: Prevention education has had limited success in reducing transmission of blood borne virus among people who inject drugs. Innovative approaches to prevention education are required. Method: This study used video recordings of injecting episodes and interviews with participants reviewing their video recordings to explore the concept of mindlessness as a new tool for prevention education. Findings: The data demonstrate elements of mindlessness in participants’ injecting practice. Participants were unable to provide detailed description of their practice, could not recall the origin of their practices, described limited sensitivity to the environment around them and described learned behaviours ‘dropping out of mind’. Conclusions: Although potentially useful as a prevention tool, prevention messages using mindlessness concepts should be developed in collaboration with injecting drug users to avoid judgmental or alienating messages. Finally, the use of these video recordings themselves can be a powerful education tool given the very hidden and stigmatized nature of injecting drug use. 2009 Journal Article http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/7130 10.3109/09687630802585377 Taylor and Francis restricted
spellingShingle Treloar, C.
Laybutt, B.
Carruthers, Susan
Using mindfulness to develop health education strategies for blood-borne virus prevention in injecting drug use
title Using mindfulness to develop health education strategies for blood-borne virus prevention in injecting drug use
title_full Using mindfulness to develop health education strategies for blood-borne virus prevention in injecting drug use
title_fullStr Using mindfulness to develop health education strategies for blood-borne virus prevention in injecting drug use
title_full_unstemmed Using mindfulness to develop health education strategies for blood-borne virus prevention in injecting drug use
title_short Using mindfulness to develop health education strategies for blood-borne virus prevention in injecting drug use
title_sort using mindfulness to develop health education strategies for blood-borne virus prevention in injecting drug use
url http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11937/7130