The utilisation of the continuum of care for treatment of persons with a substance use disorder : service providers’ and service users’ experiences and perceptions

Abstract

In South Africa, substance use, abuse and dependency is twice the world norm. To address this trend, the continuum of care guides legislative prescriptions for the treatment of a substance use disorder. This study aimed to address the lack of a description of the utilisation thereof in literature and recent research findings. A qualitative approach was followed and purposive sampling was employed to collect data from both service providers and users of services. Tesch’s framework for qualitative data analysis (Creswell, 2014:218) was used to identify themes, sub-themes and categories, while the data was compared with existing literature on the identified themes. The trustworthiness of the findings was enhanced by the verification of the data through aspects of credibility/authenticity, transformability, dependability and conformability (Schurink, Fouché and de Vos, 2011:397). Informed consent, confidentiality , non-compensation, debriefing of participants, and the management of information were considered to ensure ethical practice.