Brief Training on Medication-Assisted Treatment Improves Community Mental Health Clinicians’ Confidence and Readiness to Address Substance Use Disorders

Abstract

Despite the availability and effectiveness of medication-assisted treatment (MAT) for substance use disorders (SUDs), utilization of these medications remains suboptimal, especially in public sector settings. A key limitation is clinicians’ reluctance to include MAT in their routine practice due, in part, to low confidence about managing SUDs and limited awareness of the disease model of addiction. This study evaluates the impact of a 1-day MAT training for community mental health clinicians using a 30-item pre- and post-training questionnaire. Of the 109 clinicians who attended the training, 107 completed the pre- and post-training questionnaires. Factor analysis of the questionnaire identified two domains: readiness to address SUDs among patients (factor 1) and understanding SUDs as diseases (factor 2). Post training, there was a significant change in both factor 1 (p = .00001) and factor 2 (p = .00003), indicating that a brief MAT training can increase clinicians’ confidence and readiness to address SUDs and improve their understanding of the disease model of addiction.