Exploring the impact of social support and chronic distress on drug addiction severity

Hodge, Valerie Dianne (2014) Exploring the impact of social support and chronic distress on drug addiction severity. Masters thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

The present study investigated whether the relationship between social support and drug use severity is mediated by one’s level of psychological distress. Scales measuring chronic distress, social support, and drug abuse were administered to a sample of drug users attending an outreach service in St. John’s, NL (n = 50). In conjunction, a subset of matched participants was extracted from the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) database (n = 25); these participants were also self-reported drug users and answered questions pertaining to the study variables. Initial bivariate analyses determined that further tests of mediation were not warranted due to a lack of significant correlation among the study variables. However, follow-up comparisons indicated that drug users within St. John’s, NL were significantly more distressed, had lower social support, and greater severity of drug use compared to the overall CCHS population. Extreme severity of distress and drug abuse were consistent across the sample, therefore, a lack of variability among these factors might explain the lack of significant results. Since the mental health status of this sample was so poor, it is recommended that they be treated as a unique study group, or receive treatment prior to future research on this topic.

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