Abstract
Background: Compared to the general population, people living in prison experience substantially more poor (mental) health issues. Moreover, delinquency and drug use have many risk factors in common. Therefore, a need exists for extensive knowledge about health, drug use patterns, related needs of people with a detention background and the coverage of drug-related interventions in prison within Europe. The current protocol describes the design of a study in prison about wellbeing, drug use and related care.
Methods/design: A multicentre mixed method design is implemented in five European countries (Belgium, Cyprus, Greece, Lithuania and Luxembourg). Qualitative and quantitative data collection tools are combined in order to generate complementary and comprehensive results. First, a cross-sectional survey among people living in prison is conducted. This survey is based on a model questionnaire, EQDP, developed by the European Monitoring Centre for Drug and Drugs Addiction. Second, people living in prison and people who have been recently released from prison are involved in qualitative semi-structured face-to-face interviews. The main topics of interest are the use of drugs and other health related topics such as loneliness, anxiety, depression, infectious diseases, suicide and treatment. Third, data about service provision in prison is collected through a quantitative survey addressed to the prison authorities.
Discussion: This study protocol allows to address potential harms of drug use among people with a prison history and drug-related interventions inside prison at an international level. The strength of this study is that it builds on a common methodology that can be implemented in the same period of time. At the same time, sufficient flexibility is guaranteed so that every participating country in the study has the possibility to adapt the common methodology to its own specific legal requirements and practical circumstances. Nevertheless, this approach comes also with some limitations. Comparability and generalizability of the results are difficult to reach.