The Study of early maladaptive Schemas in Men Dependent on Drugs and those Not Dependent

Introduction and Objectives of the Study Dependence on drugs is a prevalent problem throughout the world, in general and in Iran, in particular. Such a phenomenon is associated with numerous negative consequences. Given the changes in the consumption patterns in different countries, especially in Iran, and the abuse of drugs, identifying the factors which may pave the way for drug abuse is absolutely essential, which can be taken into account in setting the objectives of therapy programs. Cognizant of this, the present study has sought to study early maladaptive schemas in men dependent on drugs and those that are not. The research design adopted in the present study was causal-comparative. The populaiton of interest was all the men dependent on drugs in the city of Yasouj, who had presented to recovery centers affiliated to welfare organization and Yasouj University of Medical Sciences in the year 2014 and were undergoing treatment. Using multi-stage cluster sampling, initially out of 23 centers for recovery programs, four centers were randomly chosen. Following that, out of each center, 20 and in total, 80 clients were chosen as the sample through convenience sampling. In addition, 80 men not dependent on drugs were chosen through matching with the sample dependent on drugs in terms of age, gender and locality. For the purpsoe of measuing early maladaptive schemas, we made use of the short version of Young’s early maladaptive Schemas Questionnaire. In order to determine the prevalent schemas in men dependent on drugs and those not dependent and the difference between the two groups, use was made of independent-sample t-test and effect size (d). The findings suggest that mean values of those dependent on drugs in all the schemas in quesiton were significantly higher than those of men not dependent. Although the difference in effect size of all schemas fell in the domain of the large effect, the largest difference in effect size between the two.