Examining factors predicting the risk of relapse and abstinence among Malaysian drug users

• Main Author: Louis, Gerard Joseph D.
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Animo Repository 2013
• Subjects: Drug addiction—Treatment > Malaysia; Clinical Psychology
• Online Access: https://animorepository.dlsu.edu.ph/etd_doctoral/348
• Institution: De La Salle University

This study set out to examine factors that contribute towards the risk of relapse among Malaysian drug users currently undergoing treatment in drug rehabilitation centers using the Therapeutic Community model of treatment. Using an integration of the Conservation of Resources and Cognitive Social Learning Theories as a basis for the conceptualization of relapse, a model of relapse examining interactions between distal and proximal factors to relapse was developed. The 173 participants in the study, whose ages ranged from 17 to 64 years old, were representative of the three major ethnic groups in Malaysia. Results showed that total coping skills and the overall loss of resources were predictors of the risk of relapse. Coping self-efficacy was found to be a partial mediator of both total coping skills and the overall loss of resources and provided possible reasons into why initial resource losses exacerbate into loss spirals. The distal factors of the age of onset of drug or alcohol use and a family history of substance abuse however, did not significantly moderate the relationship between either total coping skills or the overall loss of resources and the risk of relapse. Limitations and recommendations of the study were discussed.