research proposal

Critique

Amanda Kroeger

PSY 326

Prof. Luker

June 30, 2014

Critique

The purpose regarding this paper is to discuss the health and social challenges as a result of drug addiction globally. Particularly it brings to the attention of the reader the complexities that arise with the combined forces by diverse organizations, families, governments, and individuals in striving to counteract the abuse of drugs within traditional families whereby jeopardizing significant social virtues and values creating room for deviant behavior such as crime. The study at hand, “Familial Risk Factors Favoring Drug Addiction Onset” by Zimi & Jukic aim at the identification of the familial factors that favor the onset of drug addiction in the community. The paper further evaluates and critiques the various scholarly articles on drug addiction and their effects socially, economically, and culturally.

From this study’s 146 addicts and around 134 fundamental subjects, the authors discovered that “the families the addicts were born into, familial risk factors capable of influencing their psychosocial progress and favoring drug addiction onset had been statistically more encountered during childhood and youth as compared to the controls” (Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 2012). In addition, the outcomes from the study indicate the need to research further into three sections namely the structure of the drug addict families, familial interrelations of the families from which the drug addicts come from and the importance of implementing family-based approaches to address prevention and therapy for drug addiction. The hypothesis of the study is the effect of poor inter-parental relations on the psychological development of children. This showed that conflicts in marriages have were linked to the child’s social adjustment, incapacity, and harsh upbringing regiment which in turn results in risky behavior patterns including substance abuse (Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, 2012)]. It is from this understanding that Zimi ´ and Jukic’s study tries to investigate the familial factors in favor of drug addiction onset by putting into consideration social, developmental, and interaction elements as the determinants of family relations and familial features associated with drug addicts thus, causing children to turn to drug abuse.

In analyzing both the study at hand, that is, “Familial Risk Factors Favoring Drug Addiction Onset” and various articles from the bibliography such as Development: Which Way Now?, Personal Savings and Anticipated Inflation, Assessment and management of pain in infants, The capability of psychodynamic treatment and cognitive behavior therapy in the nursing of personality disorders: A meta-analysis, Macro dynamics, Regime Switching and Financial Stress: Hypothesis and Empirics for the US, the EU and Non-EU Countries, and Hunger, Human Development, and Health in Canada: Research, Practice, and Advocacy Dilemmas, the authors of the articles manifest an absolute perception of the subject in question. For instance, in their study (Zimi and Jukic, 2012) have employed the use of various developmental theories addressing addiction onset namely psychoanalytical theories which consider a family as the factor number one in personality shaping.

On whether the authors remain based on their selection of the literature review, there are no apparent biases only that the focus was on studies relevant to the author’s study. As evident from the study, the authors confine their research on various prior studies especially those by NIDA and those published by the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs. On the other hand, the literature review of the bibliography, the authors provide clear and comprehensive review of the topics at hand say the one on the effectiveness of psychodynamic therapy and cognitive behavior in relation to therapy treatment of personality disorders.

The study, “Familial Risk Factors Favoring Drug Addiction Onset” makes use of varied methods in their research which is a one year investigation beginning in the year 2008 to the year 2009. The research involved two categories of persons, addict group and control group with no addiction to drugs. The main metric tool of the anonymous study was a sixty-seven variable questionnaire where the addicted group comprised of 146 addicts of 92 men, 51 women and three individuals who neglected to state their gender. It is to note that the age limit for the participants was between 18 and 46. However, the majority were in the bracket of 23 to 28 bringing the average at M=28.18 and SD=5.070 (Zimi & Jukic, 2012). The control group involved 134 individuals 88 of whom were men, 45 women and one individual who neglected to state their gender and that they were aged between 17 and 44 but the majority were 22 to 27 years old (average age M = 27.13; SD = 5.224). The assertion by the authors concerning the groups is that the level of education among the controls was higher than that under the addicts p (χ2 = 44.275; df = 4; p < 0.01) and as the authors explain, it is because prior studies indicate school failure and poor academic achievement to yield normality in less than 6.5%. Some of the statistical methods used in the study in the validation of the inter relation of the two mutually comparable study groups to each other include (χ2 test) where the level of significance was p < 0.05 and f p < 0.01 together with the correlation analysis and all together analyzed using the SPSS statistics software (Zimi & Jukic, 2012). From these, it is clear that the chosen procedures for the study were appropriate.

The study analyzed above raises numerous ethical issues with the main being the well-being and social challenges, as a result, of drug dependence. However, the study also raises challenges encountered, as a result, of poor parental practices due to matrimonial conflicts and the effects on children in the addict families. The researchers addressed the ethical issues in the article to vehemently as evidence in the various reviews by government Boards dealing with the sector. Different ethical practices are questionable in the research including the deception and coercion. (Newman, 2011)

The results of the study were in four different entities name familial sociological features, familial interaction features, familial development features and familial socio-demographic features. Under the socio-demographic characteristics, the researchers found that there was no notable difference statistically in the profiles of the addicts and controls. However, the marital state of the two groups differed statistically (32% of addicts emanating from incomplete families that suffered either parental divorce or death of one of the parents versus 21% of such cases in the control group, p < 0.05) (Zimi & Jukic, 2012). The study has the author’s interpretation and judgment combined in the analysis results as they interpret the results of every test and gives the outcome as why that happened and the cause for it.

In their conclusion, the researchers note various points. First, the study demonstrates that the burden imposed on families of drug addicts by various familial risk factors capable of triggering onset psychological disorder is heavier than that on non-addict families. The study also concludes that the addicts are under poor parental surveillance in comparison to non-addicts. The study winds up by finding a causal relationship between onset drug addiction in later stages of development and familial risk factors in childhood and adolescence. The researchers in the study purpose a further study into the familial relations and structures of addicts’ families and the need for comprehensive therapeutic oriented approaches toward addicts plus their families. A limitation of the study is that it concentrated more on youths aged between 17 and 28 years leaving out the majority youth between 17 and 40 year olds. The strengths of the study are that in assessing both addicts and non-addicts which gave out convenient results. The most appropriate recommendation to this study is that there should be research on the effect of onset drug addiction courier wise and compares it to cultural values and virtues so as to determine where the effect falls more.

References

Barnard, M. (2007). Drug addiction and families. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.

Cummings, E. M., & Davies, P. (2010). Marital Conflict and Children: An Emotional Security Perspective. New York: Guilford Publications.

Edelfield, B., & Moosa, T. J. (2012). Drug abuse. New York: Rosen Pub.

Jones & Bartlett Learning. (2011). 2011 Nurse's drug handbook. Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.

Lamb, M. E. (2004). The role of the father in child development. Hoboken, N.J: Wiley.