Table 1 Main categories, sub-categories (in italics), and select corresponding quotes from qualitative analysis

Changes in service delivery

    Medication dispensing

“Positive collaboration with most patients in terms of infection control. Patients spend less time collecting the medication, which improve their quality of life. Home delivery of the medication has allowed us to get a better sense of the patients’ living situation and needs” (ID #1)

“It is easier to relax safety measures than to tighten these again” (ID #5)

“We have moved form a standardized approach to more individual treatment in each case. Patients express more satisfaction with OAT in every way. Treatment availability is improved with telemedicine and more outreach work. We have increased our availability across all channels. lt is easier for our patients to contact us. We have seen surprisingly good effect of the reduction in supervised dosing and drug screens” (ID #16)

    Depot buprenorphine

“Many patients express positive experiences and satisfaction with [depot buprenorphine], where for some the pandemic has been decisive for this medication choice.” (ID #04)

    Drug screening

“urine drug screening has been significantly reduced” (ID #23)

“[we] largely switched to saliva samples” (ID #01, ID #10)

“During the entire COVID-19 period, individual assessments have been made [for] urine drug screening, supervised dosing, pick-up intervals for medications, with the aim to strike a balance between treatment safety and risk of infection” (ID #08)

“Recently, urine drug screening has resumed for some patients where there has been a need to assess their drug use” (ID #11)

    Telemedicine

“phone and video cannot compensate for face-to-face contact” (ID #19)

“[makes us] lose the interaction of joint meetings with the patient” (ID #05)

“[makes us lose] essential observations in treatment, such as a patient’s smell, skin color, tremor, etc.” (ID #01)

“[some patients] have become more isolated as there are fewer face-to-face meetings” (ID #20)

Changes in collaboration

    Collaboration with other providers

“We collaborate with GPs and municipal health and social services to promote COVID-19 vaccination” (ID #5)

“We have had good contact with municipal health and social services over the years, but our collaboration has now improved, also with GPs” (ID # 16)

    Telephone- and videoconferencing

“In the first lockdown [of spring 2020], the collaboration was challenging, […] digital competence among employees has increased” since and “proven OAT provision adaptable to change” (ID #09)

“[telephone- and videoconferencing offered] increased flexibility, […] continue to be used where appropriate” (ID #19)