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4014-23: It’s My Secret: Shame as a Barrier to Care in Individuals with Substance Use Disorder

Establishing trust/rapport, addressing stigma, providing education, and offering support and resources, is imperative to help patients manage SUD and to achieve optimal health outcomes. Through focus group interviews, we explored the concept of shame as a barrier to seeking health care and found four major themes and associated subthemes.

Presenter:  Valerie Seney, PhD, MA, LMHC, PMHNP-BC

Disclosures:  The APNA planners and faculty have no relevant financial relationships to disclose. Off-label uses will not be discussed during this presentation.

Session Length:  30 minutes

Target Audience:  RN, APRN

Learning Outcome:
Upon completion of this presentation, the participant will be able to:

• Describe barriers to care seeking behaviors in individuals with substance use disorders (SUD). 

Keywords:  Substance Use Disorder, Compassionate Care, Shame and Addiction

Nursing Continuing Professional Development:
0.5 contact hours.  * In order to receive contact hours, you must: Listen to presentation, complete an evaluation, and earn a passing score on the post-test before the expiration date. You will have 5 tries to correctly answer the questions on the post-test and a score of 80% is required to pass. Once you have passed and completed an evaluation, the certificate will be generated online, available for you to print immediately. You cannot earn credit unless all steps are completed.

The American Psychiatric Nurses Association is accredited as a provider of nursing continuing professional development by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation.

Originally Presented
APNA 37th Annual Conference
Lake Buena Vista, FL

Access to this course will end:  November 30, 2026

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