Emerging patterns of substance abuse and related treatment in China.

PURPOSE OF REVIEW: The situation of China drug use has seen dramatic changes in recent years. The aim of this review is to give a perspective of the current situation of drug abuse, the problems associated with it, and the strategy to control it in China. RECENT FINDINGS: The number of registered drug users and newly discovered drug users had declined for 5 consecutive years, Moreover, the scaling down of drug trafficking and drug-related crimes had been seen for recent years. There are four main drug treatment modalities in China. The drug abuse and its related problems in China face new challenges, including the impact of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, the role of compulsory treatment is overemphasized, the voluntary treatment facilities and community treatment cannot meet the requirements of Chinese society, and the coordination among government departments in drug control and treatment in China need to improved. SUMMARY: With years of the joint efforts, the overall drug situation kept improving. The drug abuse and its related problems in China still is a problem, and require effective and immediate interventions.

A Comparison of COVID-19 Stigma and AIDS Stigma During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional Study in China.

Objective: To understand the current situation of stigmatizing attitudes toward Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in China and compare it with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). Methods: Convenient sampling and vignette-based methods were used to recruit participants on WeChat. A demographic form and adopted stigma scale were used to collect participants' demographic information and stigmatizing attitudes toward COVID-19 and AIDS. Results: A total of 13,994 questionnaires were included in this study. A high portion of participants tend to avoid contact with individuals affected with COVID-19 (74.3%) or AIDS (59.0%), as well as their family members (70.4% for COVID-19 and 47.9% for AIDS). About half of the participants agreed that affected persons could not only cause problems to their own family but also have adverse effects on others (59.6% and 55.6% for COVID-19, 56.9 and 47.0% for AIDS). The agreements with statements about perceived stigma were similar but slightly higher than those about personal stigma in both COVID-19 and AIDS. Participants' agreements with all statements regarding personal and perceived stigma attitudes between COVID-19 and AIDS were all statistically significant (p < 0.001). Participants obtained COVID-19-related information mainly from social media (91.3%) and newspaper or television (77.1%) during the epidemic, and 61.0% of them thought information from newspapers or television was the most reliable. Conclusion: Several similarities and differences of people's attitude toward COVID-19 and AIDS were found. Avoidance, blame, and secondary discrimination to diagnosed persons and their surrounding persons were the main representations of COVID-19-related stigma. Stigma of COVID-19 had less moral link but more public panic. Experience from HIV-related stigma reduction and prevention can be applied to reduce COVID-19-related stigma.

General Perception of Doctor-Patient Relationship From Patients During the COVID-19 Pandemic in China: A Cross-Sectional Study.

The doctor-patient relationship (DPR) is essential in the process of medical consultations and treatments. Poor DPR may lead to poor medical outcomes, medical violence against doctors, and a negative perception of the healthcare system. Little is known about how DPR is affected during this novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. This cross-sectional study aimed to explore the DPR during the COVID-19 pandemic. There were 1,903 participants in China (95% response rate) who were recruited during the pandemic online via convenience and snowball sampling. Several questionnaires were used to evaluate participants' attitudes toward DPR, including the Patient-Doctor Relationship Questionnaire (PDRQ-9), Chinese Wake Forest Physician Trust Scale (C-WFPTS), a survey on medical violence against doctors, factors that affect and improve DPR, and general trust in medical services. Results revealed that DPR improved, and doctor-patient trust increased compared to participants' retrospective attitude before the pandemic. In addition, patients' violence against doctors decreased during the pandemic. Better doctor-patient trust and lower violence toward doctors are related to better DPR. Furthermore, we found that the main factors that could improve DPR include communication between doctors and patients, medical technology and services, and medical knowledge for patients. This study helped to better understand DPR in China, which may contribute to future health policies and medical practices in order to improve DPR and doctor-patient trust.