Table 2 Healthcare Workers’ perception of patient-related factors as facilitators and barriers

Patient willingness to wait / stay in ED

20/37 (54%)

(5 nurses, 3 social workers, 7 pharmacists, 5 physicians)

…luckily the patient was willing to stay…. (Physician 004)

…I had a patient who seemed pretty motivated to wait around for the study (Pharmacist 108)

…. there was also some concern that this guy would, … leave prior to everything being sorted out…he stuck around, so that was good. (Nurse 213)

…sometimes in the process of trying to enroll them they might just leave the hospital. So I think that's happened once before. And just trying to get all the ducks aligned before you’re done and the patient has already left. (Pharmacist 107)

Often, when they are awake and ready to go and also getting the message from the medical team … ‘Get out of here,’ they don’t wait to see the social worker. (Social Worker 303)

Healthcare worker perceptions of a patient’s receptiveness, disposition, cooperation

20/37 (54%)

(7 nurses, 3 social workers, 4 pharmacists, 6 physicians)

…as long as they're receptive and … open to trying it, normally that process is very easy… (Nurse 210)

…you must be potentially receptive to doing this (Social Worker 304)

….what made it easy was that the patient wanted it. (Physician 004)

It was a bit of a challenge to kind of engage with them. They might not have necessarily wanted to listen (Pharmacist 107)

Patients …didn’t want Suboxone [buprenorphine/naloxone] therapy. They didn’t want to mess around with things or go through sort of the withdrawal experience to get onto Suboxone [buprenorphine/naloxone]… (Nurse 214)

Drowsiness, level of consciousness

10/37 (27%)

(4 nurses, 4 pharmacists, 2 physicians)

…the patient was … quite drowsy because she used opioids that day and so the pharmacist didn’t feel they were able to consent the patient properly at that time or counsel the patient properly. (Physician 008)

I had maybe two patients who were really drowsy, and in those cases you really had to wake them up … and if they weren’t you know as awake then I would wonder if they got all of it (Pharmacist 109)

Comprehension, retention of information

8/37 (22%)

(3 nurses, 5 pharmacists)

….she had already been on Suboxone [buprenorphine/naloxone] therapy before so the counselling was much shorter. (Pharmacist 105)

… educating could be a little bit difficult if they’re currently on drugs while they’re in the ED, how much information gets retained, how productive is the conversation. (Nurse 206)