University of Helsinki
Recently, the A-BRAIN consortium welcomed two new researchers at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto.
PhD student Samantha Rundle started already in late 2018 and became a crucial part of the focus group material gathering last winter. Rundle started her work in the addiction field in her recently completed Master’s thesis at the University of Toronto. Her current research examines the impact of stigma on individuals suffering from substance use disorders.
In her MA thesis Samantha investigated how public stigma is impacted by the way in which we define addiction, and by the beliefs that individuals hold toward addiction in the society. Findings from the study suggested that addictive disorders continue to be more stigmatized than a co-occurring addictive and mental health disorder, a mental health disorder alone, and a non-psychiatric medical disorder (diabetes). Additionally, it indicated that beliefs in a psychological and natural model of addiction over a Brain Disease Model of Addiction (BDMA) predicted the lowest public stigma ratings towards individuals suffering from an addictive disorder.