Hi there,

One of your forum members kindly suggested that I might post on here so I just wanted to write to see if anyone might be able to help.

My name is Mark Mason and I'm a mature research student working part time at Oxford Brookes University studying for a Phd.

My work is in the area of older drugs users and I'm looking to talk to anyone over 50 who is using any kind of illicit drugs either at the moment, or has been recently.

There doesn't seem to be any sort of research in this area at all at the moment and especially in this country, this seem to be a silent issue. My hope is that through interviews I can aim to understand older drug users, their circumstances and their needs, to provide valuable missing information that can be used to help improve the quality of life of this group.

I have been a professional researcher for over 20 years with experience of working with, and interviewing, drug users and other vulnerable individuals, so this is nothing new to me. I am very serious about what I am doing and am certainly not in the business of wasting anyone's time. So if you feel that you can or would like to help me please do get in touch, I would be extremely grateful. I have posted my email address with this post if this has worked right ... I am new to the forum.

I hope these answer any initial questions that you might have, but I would be more than happy to answer any further questions or queries if you have them. Thank you very much indeed for your time and do hope that you may be able to help.

Thank you very much indeed

Mark

Mark,
Would gladly help if I can, but it would be useful to know what stage this project is at i.e. has it been through ethics or is it at an earlier stage? How do you plan to make contact and what assurances can you give regarding confidentiality etc.

Also ,have you thought about interviewing those who have worked with older drug users to see if they are percieved differently?

Hello there,

Thank you for your reply to my thread. I have been through ethics and have clearance from our University Ethics Board so I am at the stage of recruiting participants now. I have the interview schedule all set up and I'm pretty much ready to go.

In terms of confidentiality I can give the assurance that any answers that I given during any interviews will be treated in strict confidence. No interviewees will not be named at all at any stage, so no one will be able to find out what people have said in the interview. This includes anyone else at my University. The results of the study will not identify anyone in particular as responses will be written up anonymously and not attributed in any way.

With regards your other point, yes I have thought about those who work with drug users and might do this at some point but it is the drug users perceptions that I am after to start with. Then I might put these perceptions to health care professionals and charity workers etc.

I hope this answers your questions but if not please don't hesitate to get back to me.

Thank you again
Mark

Hi Mark,
i would certainly ask Beryl at the Methadone alliance, as she has done work in this area, including visiting Old People's Homes in holland, where methadone is doled out by the matron. beryl@m-alliance.org.uk

In fact i would also put a post on the methadone alliance forum:: http://www.m-alliance.org.uk/about.html

As i have been scripting people for so long, i have a large handful of Older Service Users, and some of them would probably happily give you an interview, if you would like to contact me, and if you fancied a trip all the way to birmingham. You might need to offer a do-nut or something as reward. Most large Clinics will have some older clients/patients, so can you just approach your local Clinics, if you have all the appropriate ethics approvals?

As the Baby boom generation grows older, many have kept their opiate habits, and hopefully as our treatment is safer and better, more are in treatment and less are dead, so our British old People's homes are likely to get very used to methadone scripts.

One of the patients I saw this afternoon, told me she had just seen an elderly man "in the same phone box I used to use years ago" still scoring, even though now in the local residential home, and she says at least 4 others in that establishment are also users.

I don't suppose my generation can blame it all on the vietnam war.

I seem to remember you once did a workshop on this very topic at an RCGP conference Judith?