Staff perspectives on methadone maintenance therapy (MMT) in a large southwestern jail

The purpose of the study was to develop and test an instrument to measure knowledge about methadone maintenance treatment, attitudes towards drug addiction, readiness to adopt a methadone maintenance program, and to determine how the staff at a large metropolitan detention center score on these domains. We developed a 45-item Knowledge, Attitudes, and Readiness to Adopt survey and administered it to 114 jail staff. The anonymous survey was psychometrically sound. Younger and non-medical staff generally had low knowledge scores on the survey and had negative attitudes towards methadone as a treatment for heroin addiction. Written comments indicated that many staff members have strong and often polarized opinions about drug treatment in a correctional setting. Results of this study suggest several steps towards improving the staff support for methadone maintenance therapy, which includes better education regarding opiate replacement therapy as an effective treatment for heroin addiction.