Author(s): Zivar Taheri, Mehdi Amiri, Mohammadali Hosseini, Mohaddeseh Mohsenpour and Patricia Merry Davidson
Background: Addiction is an unpleasant social phenomenon that leaves heavy destructive consequences, like a storm, for the addict, their family and community. Studies show that addiction has a growing trend in Iran. The purpose of this study was to identify factors affecting tendency for drug abuse.
Materials: This quantitative content analysis study was conducted on 32 people attending an addiction treatment centre in Shahin Shahr city, Iran in 2014. Participants were selected by purposive method and data were collected through interviews. After converting to text, content of the interviews was analysed by quantitative content analysis method.
Results: Data are presented in four main categories with the highest repetition: (1) environmental factors (friendly gatherings, communicating with drug users), (2) family factors (a drug user in the family, loneliness and separation from family, family problems and disputes), (3) individual factors (attracting the opposite sex, wealth, being athlete, curiosity and receiving energy, youth ignorance, sickness), and (4) social factors (having a hard job, unemployment, lack of recreation, convenient access to drugs).
Conclusion: The most prevalent factors affecting tendency for drug abuse included environmental and family factors. So it is necessary to perform preventive measures in the community by developing related education in families, schools and universities so that tendency for drug abuse is reduced in Iran.
