Comparison of coping strategies and emotion regulation tendencies among opium users, methadone maintenance treatment clients and normal individuals

Abstract

Substance abuse is also related to psychological skills that affect the treatment process. Identifying the role of these skills can be useful for the development of a better intervention. This purpose of this study was to compare the coping strategies and emotion regulation profiles among opium users, methadone maintenance treatment clients, and normal individuals. The sample was selected among patients and their accompanies-relatives or friends-as attending to Sari substance abuse treatment centers in spring 2016 to start or continue professional treatment. By using convenience sampling method, participants were assigned to three groups: opium users (n= 43), methadone maintenance treatment clients (n= 45), and control group (n= 43). Measuring tools included coping inventory for stressful situations and the difficulties in emotion regulation scale for all participants in the three groups. Significant differences were observed between the control and experimental groups: compared to the control group, opium users and methadone maintenance treatment clients had more emotion regulation difficulties and more adopted avoidance and emotion-focused coping strategies. By exploring the variables associated with the onset, persistence, and severity of substance abuse, the findings suggested groundwork for further researches which could be incorporated in prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation evidence-based methods to ameliorate the rate of substance abuse and dependency and related harms.

A longitudinal examination of alcohol use and emotion dysregulation in adolescence.

“…Our results align with Dvorak et al (2014), who found that greater emotion regulation difficulties were associated with greater alcohol-related consequences in a sample of college students (Dvorak et al, 2014). Moreover, this finding is supported by past research showing greater deficits in emotion regulation for substance use groups than control groups in samples of recently abstinent adults (Azizi et al, 2019;Fox et al, 2007Fox et al, , 2008. These studies and the present study suggest emotion dysregulation is related to current alcohol use for various populations.…”

The relationship between negative peer relationship and non-suicidal self-injury in Chinese adolescents: A moderated-mediation model

“…When an individual could not support the function of regulating negative emotions, the possibility of using external negative coping methods (i.e., substance abuse, alcohol dependence, NSSI, etc.) would be greatly enhanced ( Siodmok et al, 2013 ; Azizi et al, 2019 ; Gratz Kim et al, 2020 ). The influence of external factors such as negative peer relationship and internal factors such as immature of emotional regulation ability indicated that those adolescents were more likely to use NSSI to relieve accumulated and unbearable negative emotions.…”

Emotion regulation in substance use disorders: a systematic review and meta‐analysis

“…We conducted six sensitivity analyses (Supporting information, Figure S4.1–S4.6). When removing the three studies with imputed total DERS scores [49, 50, 65], the value of the effect size was similar (21.49, 95% CI = 15.76–27.22, P < 0.001) and heterogeneity remained high ( I 2 = 93.2%). After removing the three outlier studies [52, 55, 62], the effect size decreased to 17.43 (95% CI = 14.39–20.47, P < 0.001) and heterogeneity decreased ( I 2 = 77.72%) but remained high.…”

“…Of these, 14 failed to meet inclusion criteria [ 16 , 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 44 , 45 , 46 ]; reasons for study exclusion can be found in Supporting information, Table S1.1 . We were left with 22 studies to be included for the primary analysis [ 17 , 27 , 33 , 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 , 52 , 53 , 54 , 55 , 56 , 57 , 58 , 59 , 60 , 61 , 62 , 63 , 64 , 65 ]. A summary of the systematic review search process is shown in Figure 1 (PRISMA flow‐chart).…”