EXAMINING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN 12-STEP KNOWLEDGE AND OPIOID USE DISORDER COUNSELING SELF-EFFICACY

Research indicates that opioid use disorder (OUD) is the most fatal and rapidly growing substance use disorder (SUD) in the United States, affecting over three million Americans with nearly a million overdose deaths since 1999 (Azadfard et al., 2021; Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2023). Despite the pervasiveness of this diagnosis, research fails to evaluate counselors’ efficacy beliefs regarding the clinical treatment of the OUD client population. Similarly, despite the support that exists for affiliation with 12-step recovery groups like Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous improving recovery outcomes for those diagnosed with OUD (Costello et al., 2019; Humphreys et al., 2020; Kelly et al., 2020), studies assessing counselors’ knowledge of 12-step recovery are scarce in the counseling literature. The present study targeted these two under-represented constructs by examining the relationship between counselors’ knowledge of 12-step recovery and their opioid use disorder counseling self-efficacy (OUDCSE). Counselors’ addiction beliefs and personal substance use experience (PSUE) were chosen as variables in this study, as both have a clinically significant influence on the counseling process and efficacy beliefs (Bawden, 2020; Cronin et al., 2014; Nielson, 2016). The researcher obtained approval from the university’s Institutional Review Board and used convenience and snowball sampling to recruit 161 licensed mental health counselors, marriage and family therapists, and certified clinical rehabilitation counselors for participation.