Substance Abuse in Addicts Referred to Public and Private Substance Abuse Treatment Centers

Aims Drug addiction is a mental, social, and economic problem that comes from abnormaland illicit consumption of substances such as alcohol, opium, hashish, and etc., making theaddict psychologically and physiologically dependent to those substances. This study wasdesigned and performed to evaluate the pattern of drug abuse change in the addicts visitingaddiction treatment centers of Kashan City, Iran.Instrument & Methods This retrospective descriptive research was performed on 4066persons referred to addiction treatment and harm reduction therapy centers, monitored byKashan University of Medical Sciences, during 2004 to 2008. After coding, data were enteredinto the SPSS 16 software. Chi-square and one-way ANOVA was used to analyze the data.Findings The main reasons of the tendency to drugs were not having fun (72.5%), familyproblems (55%) and not having knowledge (22.7%). The use of opium was the highest in allthe years while the crack was used by 7.1% of drug addicts in 2004 and increased to 76% in2007. 92.8% of drug abuses were through fumigation, 33.7% through injection, 48% orallyand 8.6% through inhalants.Conclusion Youths are the most vulnerable age group to drug addiction. Easy access to illegaldrugs, wrong friends, and curiosity are of the significant factors spreading drug addiction.