BACKGROUND: Over 200 safer drug consumption facilities have been implemented globally, as an effective intervention to prevent drug-related harms. There are many possible service designs of the facility and currently the optimum design is unclear in the Scottish context. This study investigates people who use drugs (PWUD)' preferences for the features of safer drug consumption facility to provide useful information in guiding planning for improved service in Scotland.

METHODS: Preferences were elicited using a discrete choice experiment. Each choice set presented 2 different hypothetical safer drug consumption facilities and an opt-out option. The hypothetical facilities were defined by 6 attributes: location, staffing, space allocation, ancillary service, opening times, and travel time. A mixed logit model was used to assess the relative importance of defined attributes among 77 PWUD in Dundee, Edinburgh, and Glasgow.

RESULTS: Participants had a strong preference for a safer drug consumption facility that involves peer workers (Coeff: 0.953, p<0.001), provides inhalation space (Coeff: 0.668, p<0.05), provides drug checking service (Coeff: 0.677, p<0.001), and is open 24 hours a day (Coeff: 0.373, p<0.05) compared to one without peer workers, no inhalation space, no drug checking service, and with daytime-only opening hours. A longer travel time was associated with a lower preference to use a safer drug consumption facility (Coeff: -0.011, p<0.001). There was no evidence of preferences regarding location or overnight opening time (p>0.05).

CONCLUSIONS: This is the first discrete choice experiment to quantify the preference of PWUD regarding different design features for a hypothetical safer drug consumption facility. The findings can be used to guide the design of safer drug consumption facility in Scotland, while providing evidence base for the wider context.