Investigating Healthcare Provider Bias Toward Patients Who Use Drugs Using a Survey-based Implicit Association Test: Pilot Study

Objectives: Negative bias against people who use illicit drugs adversely affects the care that they receive throughout the hospital. We hypothesized that emergency providers would display stronger negative bias toward these patients due to life-threatening contexts in which they treat this population. We also hypothesized that negative implicit bias would be associated with negative explicit bias. Methods: Faculty, nurses, and trainees at a midwestern tertiary care academic hospital were invited (June 26, 2019—September 5, 2019) to complete an online implicit association test and explicit bias survey. Results: Mean implicit association test results did not vary across demographics (n = 79). There were significant differences in explicit bias scores between departments regarding whether patients who use drugs deserve quality healthcare access (P = 0.017). We saw no significant associations between implicit and explicit bias scores. Conclusion: Though limited by sample size, the results indicate that emergency and obstetrics/gynecology providers display more negative explicit bias toward this patient population than other providers.