Relationship between psychological distress and coping strategies among drug addicts

Abstract

The current study aimed at investigating the relationship between psychological distress and coping strategies among drug addicts. Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS) originally developed by (Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995) was used to evaluate the severity of the core symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress while by using Brief Cope scale (Carver, 1997), coping strategies were examined. For that purpose sample of 200 males were selected within age range of 20 to 60 years. The study findings shows a significant relationship between psychological distress and coping strategies among drug addicts. Drug addicts used more maladaptive coping strategies i.e., active avoidance (M=29.62; SD=5.18) and religious/denial coping (M=12.125; SD=2.58) then adaptive coping i.e., problem focused (M=19.03; SD= 4.4) and positive coping (M=19.39; SD=3.99). Study findings also revealed that depression and anxiety have a positive correlation with problem focused coping among drug addicts. This reflects that drugs affect the mental functioning of the addicts, which shows that drug addicts use different coping strategies as compared to normal individuals. Therefore , this area needs to be further explored in the future research. Henceforth, with the help of this research people working with drug addiction rather can establish intervention programs and educational sessions that can help and motivate the addicts to enhance their coping in order to deal with stress. Limitations and recommendations for future studies are also discussed.