International Journal of High Risk Behaviors and Addiction
Volume:10 Issue: 4, Dec 2021

Addiction affects the economy of countries worldwide. Nutrition plays an important role in helping persons who use drugs (PWUDs) to regain their physical and mental health, thereby increasing the probability of recovery.

This study aimed to evaluate the effects of implementing the nutrition care process on PWUDs management 120 days after its implementation.

Following a quasi-experimental design with pre and post-test evaluations, 268 PWUDs admitted to 8 drug treatment, and rehabilitation centers in the Philippines were recruited. Developed nutrition management guidelines containing the nutrition care process and cycle menu of calculated diet for PWUDs were provided for implementation in the rehabilitation regimen. Body mass index was used to assess nutritional status, dietary diversity score (DDS) to measure diet quality, WHO quality of life-BREF to assess the quality of life (QoL), Kessler-10 Psychological Distress Scale to determine psychological distress, and Beck’s depression inventory to assess stress level. All descriptive analyses were performed using STATA version 13. Repeated measures ANOVA, Cochran’s Q test, and Kendall’s tau coefficient were performed using SPSS-20.

The results indicated a 92% reduction in underweight during the study period. Participants with high DDS significantly increased from 38.43 to 91.04%. All domains of the QoL were improved, the level of severe depression was significantly decreased (6.72 to 4.48%), and decrease in the proportion of participants experiencing moderate (18.3 to 12.7%) and severe psychological distress (4.48 to 3.73%) was observed. There was no significant association between DDS and the three psychological parameters.

The implementation of the nutrition care process and the recovery diets is feasible and could improve the nutritional status, QoL, and stress level of PWUDs.

There is a category of people with a congenial predisposition to alcohol abuse among the total population. The identification of such persons by molecular genetic diagnostics and the implementation of appropriate preventive measures can significantly reduce the incidence of alcoholism.

This research aimed to study the genetic foundations of alcohol dependence development in Kazakhs based on the analysis of population frequencies of polymorphic variants of predisposition to alcoholism genes.

The material for the research was the DNA recovered from the peripheral blood of the recruited control group population, which was represented by 1,800 conditionally healthy individuals of Kazakh nationality. Isolated DNA samples were genotyped by PCR. The data was calculated and analyzed using HWEtest function of PLINK software.

Kazakhs take an intermediate position between the previously studied European and Asian populations by allele frequencies of nine polymorphic variants of ADH1B (rs2066701, rs1789891), ADH1C (rs1693425, rs698), HTR2C (rs6318), ALDH2 (rs671), CADM2 (rs9841829), KLB (rs11940694), DRD2 (rs1076560) genes. Possible markers of an increased risk of alcoholism development in Kazakhs are G alleles of polymorphic loci rs2066701 of the ADH1B gene and rs671 of the ALDH2 gene, and the protective effect is possible in the presence of A alleles rs2066701 of the ADH1B gene and rs671 of the ALDH2 gene.

For decades, harm reduction programs for addiction have been started in Iranian prisons. The programs comprise methadone maintenance treatment, antiretroviral treatment, and other harm reduction programs implemented as a triangular clinic. Despite the lack of funding to provide mental health services, particularly for substance use and harm reduction in prisons of low- and middle-income countries, Iran provides well-developed services.

The study investigated the implementation and achievements of harm reduction programs in Sanandaj prison located in the center of Kurdistan Province, west of Iran.

This was a qualitative cross-sectional study. We used various information sources such as a checklist and group discussions. The participants were chosen by the purposive sample method and included prison authorities and harm reduction service providers and recipients. The data were analyzed by content analysis. The MAXQDA 12 software was used to manage the data.

The harm reduction programs included opioid substitution therapy, providing information and education, voluntary counseling and testing for blood-borne diseases, providing condoms, hepatitis C virus screening, and antiretroviral treatment. Following the implementation of the program, a significant decrease in violence, self-injury, illegal drug use and shared syringes, HIV-positive new comers, and no necessity for the needle and syringe program when starting methadone treatment was reported.

Commitment to a strict ban on the entering of drugs to the prison is a reason for the use of high-risk methods of drug use and behaviors such as injection, self-injury, or violence. Sharing syringes and needles is a major cause of the transmission of HIV and hepatitis viruses among drug users. Harm reduction programs, especially methadone maintenance treatment and antiretroviral treatment, have reduced a large proportion of drug-related harms in prisons. Scaling up the programs and their extension to post-release treatment will greatly reduce the country's health costs.
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Despite extensive evidence on cognitive deficits and difficulty in emotion regulation related to substance abuse, especially methamphetamine abuse, a few well-organized programs could have improved cognitive abilities and emotion regulation in drug users.

The present study aimed to investigate the effectiveness of Interpersonal and Social Rhythm therapy (IPSRT) alone and combined with Cognitive Rehabilitation therapy (CRT) on inhibitory response and emotion dysregulation in people with methamphetamine use disorder.

The current quasi-experimental study with a pretest-posttest and follow-up design included two intervention groups. Forty methamphetamine abusers were selected based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria and assigned randomly to the IPSRT (n = 20) and IPSRT + CRT (n = 20) groups. The first group received IPSRT in 12 sessions, two 60 min sessions per week. The second group received IPSRT and 16 sessions of CRT. Subjects were assessed three times at pre-intervention, immediately after the intervention, and four weeks after the intervention. The Go/No-Go test (a neuro-cognitive task) and the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS-36) was used to gather the data. Data was analyzed by descriptive statistics and mixed repeated ANOVA.

The results indicated that the two interventions had significant long-term effects on increasing the inhibitory response and decreasing emotion dysregulation. In addition, IPSRT with CRT was more effective than IPSRT alone in promoting executive functions and decreasing emotion dysregulation.

The findings of this study provide evidence that adding CRT as an adjunct intervention to psychological interventions such as IPSRT can improve emotional and cognitive performance. Therefore, a combination of psychological interventions with CRT can be considered a useful intervention in addiction treatment centers.

The growing trend of substance use among students is a serious threat for the health of young adults. Using Network Scale-up (NSU) method.

The present study was designed to indirectly estimate the prevalence of substance use among students of medical science universities in the eighth macro-region of Iran to attract government attention to this problem.

This cross-sectional study was performed on 3,900 students from medical science universities in the eighth macro-region of Iran (2300 from Kerman and 1600 from Sistan and Baluchestan provinces) in 2019. The sample size of each university was determined using a multistage non-random sampling approach. The participants were asked to introduce their academic close friends who did high-risk behaviors during last year.

Out of 3,900 participants, 1,872 (48%) were males and 2,028 (52%) were females. Students from all academic degrees contributed to this study. The prevalence of alcohol, marijuana, hemp, chewing tobacco, tramadol, methylphenidate, and opium use were 20.6% (95% CI: 19.3 - 21.9), 13.5% (CI: 12.4 - 14.5), 4.1% (CI: 3.5 - 4.7), 6.3% (CI: 5.5 - 7.1), 3.1% (CI: 2.6 - 3.7), 6.5% (CI: 5.7 - 7.3), and 4.0% (CI: 3.1 - 4.9), respectively. Also, the prevalence of substance use was higher among male students than females.

Male students are more at risk for substance use. The rates of alcohol and marijuana consumption were higher among students. Training programs are recommended to increase awareness level of young people and the society about disadvantages of these behaviors.

Substance abuse promotes a sense of self-perceived evolutionary ability by stimulating the cortico-mesolimbic in the brain. Although the relationship between substance use and evolutionary fitness has been demonstrated, the role of mediating variables that may contribute to the relationship between self-perceived evolutionary fitness and substance use is not clear yet.

The present study aimed to examine the relationship between self-perceived evolutionary fitness and the tendency to substance use and the mediating role of boredom and mind wandering in this relationship. Materials and

This study was performed using structural equation modeling (SEM). The statistical population comprised of the students at state-run universities of medical sciences in Tehran. A sample of 200 students from Iran University of Medical Sciences was selected via convenience sampling. The Evolutionary Fitness Scale, Short Boredom Proneness Scale, the Maladaptive Daydreaming Scale and Addiction Potential Scale were used to gather the data. The data were analyzed by Pearson correlation test and structural equation path analysis in SPSS 20 and Lisrel 8.80.

A significant negative correlation was found between evolutionary fitness and addiction potential (r = -0.75). The proposed model showed the direct effect factor of evolutionary fitness on addiction potential (β = -0.50, t = 7.90), boredom (β = -0.71, t = -14.12), and mind wandering (β = -0.46, t = -7.28). Moreover, the direct effect factor of boredom (β = 0.37, t = 5.94) and mind wandering (β = -0.02, t = -0.47) for addiction potential was established.

Poor evolutionary fitness starts mind wandering about fitness-related issues. Eventually, this wandering leads to the unpleasant sense of boredom. Taking drugs artificially and temporarily increases evolutionary fitness and reduces one’s sense of boredom.

Craving has an important place in the structure of the literature on consumption disorders.

The present research investigates the relationship between emotional factors (such as positive and negative effects, emotion regulation, emotion regulation strategies, emotional processing, emotional stimulation, attention to emotional stimuli, emotional separation, and emotional response) with consumption craving. Patients and

The statistical population of current descriptive-correlational research consisted of all opium-dependent patients living in medium-term accommodation centers (camps) in Zahedan, Iran, from 2018 to 2019. Among 21 allowed accommodation centers, 12 were randomly selected. A purposive sampling method was used to select 243 patients. For collecting data, multiple questionnaires were used. Pearson correlation coefficient test and stepwise multivariate regression were used for analyzing the data. Data were analyzed using SPSS-16 software.

The results showed that among emotional factors, emotional excitement could only predict 0.020 of variations in instant craving, and other emotional factors did not have much explanatory power. However, to predict drug carvings and desires, more emotional variables (emotional arousal, emotional processing, affection, emotion regulation, and emotional separation) were entered into the equation, and the set could predict 0.156% of drug carving.

Cultural factors play an important role in the expression of emotion, and it is important to consider them in the field of drug prevention. Concurrent attention is needed to be paid to the biological, psychological, and social dimensions. In addition, concurrent treatment can lead to interdisciplinary collaboration.