Patients' Experiences Discussing Psychedelics for Therapeutic Purposes with Physicians and Other Health Care Providers
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Background: A core component in the provision and receipt of appropriate medical care is trust and communication between patients and physicians. The use of psychedelics for therapeutic purposes (PTPs) has experienced growing attention in the past decade and may be an increasing topic of patient–physician interactions. The stigmatization of psychedelic use may complicate this process. However, patient perspectives on discussing psychedelics with their physician have not yet been systematically examined. Methods: We report findings from a cross-sectional study of 791 adults who use psychedelics. The survey queried patient experiences communicating about PTP with health care providers (HCPs) as well as intentions, modes, and patterns of psychedelic use. Results: A majority (80%) of the 791 adult psychedelic users ( M age = 37, SD = 1.28; 46% female) endorsed using PTPs. Nearly a third of therapeutic users (30%; n = 190) reported discussing psychedelic use with their physician. Barriers to discussing PTP with physicians included stigmatization, perceived physician knowledge gaps about psychedelics, and legal status. Patients with a history of mood disorders (χ 2 = 11.01, p < 0.01), or posttraumatic stress disorder (χ 2 = 10.32, p < 0.01) were more likely to discuss PTP with their provider, as were respondents who used ketamine (χ 2 = 5.23, p < 0.05). Conclusions: This study is among the first to systemically examine patient experiences and perceptions about discussing PTP with their HCP. These data suggest the majority of patients are hesitant to discuss psychedelics with their physicians and illuminate factors associated with greater likelihood of patient–physician discussions.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.002 | 0.010 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".