Study Of Factors Impacting On Relapse And Implicit Cognition Of Drug Abusers

Relapse was the most difficult problem which could hardly be solved in both academic research of addiction and clinical treatment. Some studies concluded that 95% of drug abusers who had received drug rehabilitation treatment would relapse, especially in 3 months. The average duration of keeping out of drug was 25 days only. Because of the complex, unclear reasons of relapse, reducing relapse rate had become the most important problem in this area.We reviewed a number of important studies in substance addiction area, and concluded several important factors impacting on substance abuse. Also, we found some deficiency had existed in the research of explicit cognition of drug abusers. So, we focused on a new methodology to research substance addiction by the notion of implicit cognition. There were two studies in this master thesis. Study 1 investigated some impacting factors, and the relationship between factors and some drug using behaviors, by self-reported questionnaire. Besides some contents similar with studyl, Study 2 mostly investigated the implicit cognition of drug abusers through testing 3 groups of subjects (heroin abusers receiving Methadone Maintenance Treatment, heroin abusers not receiving Methadone Maintenance Treatment and non-drug users) by Implicit Association Test (IAT). Generally speaking, study 1 focused on the explicit cognition and drug abuse behavior measurements; study 2 focused on the implicit cognition of drug abusers.Results of study 1 improved the relationship between impacting factors ("craving for drug", "expose to clue", "negative emotion", "refuse self efficiency", "loneliness") and abuse behaviors, and one of the most impacting factors was "craving for drug" which could predict the risk of relapse. Results explored the subjects' implicit cognition and explicit cognition are independent and detached, and "liking" system was different from "wanting" system in implicit cognition. Based on the results, methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) appeared to be a valid for opiate withdrawal treatment as it reversed the desire for heroin in heroin abusers.Many studies focused on just one or two impacting factors before, while this master thesis focused on five impacting factors simultaneously, and constructed their structure model. We first explored the implicit cognition of drug abusers through Implicit Association Test (IAT) in China, and we first chose "methadone" as a pair target word to match "heroin" in the IATs. Besides theoretical values, some practical values also could be got from this master thesis. For example, inspecting the severity of drug abuse and predicting risk of relapse by measuring "craving for drug" and "me-not me IAT"; more accurate drug rehabilitation treatment could be advanced after knowing the important impacting factors.