Psychological distress in a sample of Moroccan prisoners with drug-dependence

Abstract

Research regarding mental illness and drug addiction among inmates in Morocco requires increased knowledge; previous literature reported that prisoners suffer from severe psychological distress. The present study aimed to provide information about Moroccan prisoners’ psychological distress and define the differences in psychological distress levels among inmates with and without drug-dependence. A sample of 177 male inmates completed a set of surveys, including the Drug Use Disorders Identification Test (DUDIT) and the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI). The “Drug dependence” group scored significantly higher psychological distress levels in each of the BSI domains. The strongest differences were measured in the General Severity Index (GSI), hostility, and depression scales. Moroccan prison inmates have high psychological distress, and those with drug-dependence have even higher. There is a need of psychiatric assessment, selection, and care possibilities in prison inmate populations.

Difficulties in Establishing “Truth” Conditions in the Assessment of Addictive Smartphone Use in Young Adults

“…Lacking a clinical evaluation, researchers use external criteria which are expected to be associated with the scale, to distinguish between truly ‘addicted’ individuals (what we will call ‘problematic profiles’ below). These external criteria include, for example, addiction symptoms from the DSM-IV [ 61 , 62 ], lack of self-control [ 63 ], subjective feeling of smartphone addiction [ 32 ] symptoms of depression and anxiety [ 21 , 64 ], or correlation with other internet addiction scales [ 65 ]. Compare SAS-SV scores with the true condition above, calculating true positives (TP: ‘addicted’ individuals who were correctly classified as such), false positives (FP: people classified ‘addicted’ by the SAS-SV who are not truly ‘addicts’), true negatives (TN: subjects who are not ‘addicted’ and were correctly classified as such), and false negatives (FN: ‘addicts’ who are classified as not having any problem with their smartphone use).…”

“…Lacking a clinical evaluation, researchers use external criteria which are expected to be associated with the scale, to distinguish between truly ‘addicted’ individuals (what we will call ‘problematic profiles’ below). These external criteria include, for example, addiction symptoms from the DSM-IV [ 61 , 62 ], lack of self-control [ 63 ], subjective feeling of smartphone addiction [ 32 ] symptoms of depression and anxiety [ 21 , 64 ], or correlation with other internet addiction scales [ 65 ].…”