Levels of addiction prevention
Combating psychoactive substance use is built on three successive levels:
- Primary prevention aims to reduce overall morbidity. It includes disseminating specialized information, fostering an active civic stance among youth, developing stress resilience, promoting a healthy lifestyle, and engaging adolescents in alternative activities.
- Secondary prevention is selective in nature and targeted at individuals who have already experimented with drugs or are in high-risk groups. The main task here is to prevent the development of chronic dependence.
- Tertiary prevention is focused on individuals with established dependence. The main goals are to restore health, reintegrate the patient into society, and prevent relapses.
Risk and protective factors
The likelihood of psychoactive substance use depends on the balance of adverse and protective factors.
High-risk factors:
- Upbringing in families where parents suffer from alcoholism or drug addiction.
- Presence of physical or mental health problems.
- Regular contact with peers who use psychoactive substances.
- Low intelligence level and insufficient social competence.
- Personality traits: self-doubt, low self-esteem, inability to cope with emotions, susceptibility to peer pressure, and non-acceptance of social norms.
Low-risk factors (protective):
- A supportive and cohesive family with trusting relationships.
- Good housing conditions and a stable middle or high income.
- Attention to health issues and family traditions of health care.
Medical and social consequences
Psychoactive substance use delivers a severe blow to somatic health and social stability.
- Somatic pathologies: Particularly severe damage occurs in people who inject drugs. In addition to the risk of blood-borne infections (in Moscow, HIV antibodies are registered in 12.4% of PWID), vascular thrombosis, toxic hepatitis, and encephalopathies develop. Chronic pancreatitis is frequently of alcoholic origin.
- Impact on offspring: Parental use of psychoactive substances leads to severe pathologies in children, most notably fetal alcohol syndrome, which causes developmental delays and congenital malformations.
- Crime and mortality: The mortality rate among dependent individuals is sharply elevated due to poisonings, injuries, traffic accidents, and suicides. Statistics directly link alcohol consumption to an increase in the number of violent crimes and homicides.
Class and exam questions
What tasks does secondary drug addiction prevention solve?
Secondary prevention targets individuals who have already experimented with drugs and belong to high-risk groups. Its main goal is to prevent the establishment of chronic dependence.
What factors maintain sobriety during tertiary prevention?
Such factors include stable employment, high professional status, strong family support, trusting and long-term cooperation with a physician, and attention to one's health.
What are the main protective factors against psychoactive substance use?
The main protective factors are family stability and cohesion, close trusting relationships within the family, a good income level, and family traditions of health care.
What else to study on this topic
- Fetal alcohol syndrome and its manifestations
- Statistics and causes of suicide associated with alcoholism
- The correlation between rising alcohol consumption and the rate of violent crimes
- Conditions and factors for successfully maintaining sobriety
- Specific pathology in people who inject drugs
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