15D) Health and Social Care Issue – Addiction

Craving

• An intense feeling of need and prolonged desire; yearning for the substance or behaviour

Withdrawal symptoms

• Show negative emotional responses / discomfort when attempting to cut down the substance or stop the behaviour

Tolerance

• Increasing amounts of the substance or the frequency of behaviour to maintain same level of satisfaction

Substance

• Drug (drug addiction)
• Alcohol (alcohol abuse)
• Tobacco (smoking)

Behavioural

• Pathological Gambling
• Compulsive Buying
• Internet Addiction
• Workaholics

Community

• The higher the availability of a substance in the community and higher cultural acceptance of social use of the substance

Family

• Persistent family conflicts and problems
• Parents’ influence

Peer

• Peer pressure

Individual

• Physical and mental aspects
  • physical – with psychiatric disorders such as depression or anxiety
  • mental – with poor impulse control or low stress tolerance / poor problem-solving skills
• Personal history / experience
  • from disrupted homes or have been abused
  • has the initial experience of changing his/her mood with a substance

Healthcare system

• Physical and psychological illnesses – Increase the burden of health care system

Social welfare system

• Behavioural and Social Problems – Increase the burden of social welfare system

Medication

• Reducing craving, replacing one drug (e.g. heroin) with another (e.g. methadone), blocking the effect of a certain drug, causing unpleasant reactions when the addicted drug is used, or improving one’s psychological health

Behavioural therapy

• Building skills to resist addictive activity
• Replacing addictive activity with constructive and rewarding ones, and
• Improving problem-solving abilities

Healthcare treatment

• Clinic
• In-patient Service
• Community Service and rehabilitation

Support services

• Counselling
• Talks and Workshops
• Health ambassadors
• Support Network