| Relapse is one of the most common problems of chronic drug abusers throughout the world. The present study was a two-year longitudinal study on the process of relapse prevention among chronic drug abusers in Hong Kong. It aimed to propose a multivariate integrative model relating the cognitive, interpersonal, and intrapersonal influences on the process of relapse prevention. These variables were categorized in three different levels of influences, namely, ultimate level (identity and marginalization), distal level (identification with drug culture, beliefs about substance, and self-derogation), and proximal level (self-efficacy, abstinence violation effect, and social support). There were 491 participants (416 men and 75 women) in Wave 1 and 356 (296 men and 60 women) in Wave 2. Path analysis indicated that participants' identity in Wave 1, the degree that they understood and accepted themselves and by others, significantly and directly influenced all the distal level variables (identification with drug culture, beliefs about substance, and self-derogation) in Wave 1. Variables in the distal level, in turn, significantly and directly affected the variables in the proximal level (self-efficacy and social support) in both Wave 1 and Wave 2. As a result, the length of abstinence in Wave 1 and variables in the proximal level in Wave 2 significantly and directly influenced the length of abstinence in Wave 2. The proposed integrative model of relapse prevention accounted for half of the variance of the length of abstinence in Wave 2. Implications of the findings were also discussed. |
