The Attitudes and Perceptions of Drug Addiction Among a Sample of Brazilian Higher Education Health Schoolmasters

This study aims to evaluate perceptions of drug addiction among professors from two undergraduate health programs, Psychology and Medicine. Four self-administered Likert scale questionnaires were used to measure their accountability regarding morality, societal tolerance, causes of addiction, willingness to interact with and assist drug users, views on recovery and treatment, and the level of responsibility they attribute to addicts. Given the prejudice and stigmatization faced by drug users within civil society and among healthcare professionals—issues that underscore the context of class hierarchy—historical materialism serves as the foundational framework. For analysis of the results, we integrate qualitative data analysis with quantitative empirical approaches. Our results highlight that, despite being characterized by different accountability models, both groups maintained a moralizing view of drug addiction, with physicians exhibiting a stronger moral stance. This may indicate that the stigmatization of addiction is perpetuated among future health professionals within the academic environment.