A Qualitative Study of Barriers to Care for People With Co-Occurring Disorders

The present qualitative study used face-to-face and telephone interviews with service providers in the Tampere area in Finland to describe the provider viewpoint on barriers to care for people with co-occurring disorders. The core barrier concerns the definition and understanding of the problems: client and professional perspectives often differ, and both can be out of step with what the care system actually proposes. Professionals need to take into account contexts with potentially multiple barriers to care. Providers in each local area should examine possible barriers and find solutions together, integrating the client perspective at each step in the process.