Association between substance use treatment motivations and retention in treatment

ABSTRACT

Background

Identifying factors influencing the retention in the treatment of substance users is one of the great issues in the health field. The present study was performed to identify the motivations to start treatment and their relationship with retention in the treatment.

Methods and materials

This cross-sectional study carried out on 189 people with substance use disorder undergoing treatment in the first month referred to addiction treatment clinics in 2021. Forty clinics were selected using a simple random sampling method. Required information was collected using a demographic and “motivating factors to quit” questionnaire. Data were analyzed using chi-square, Fisher’s exact and Mann – Whitney U tests through SPSS version 24.

Results

This study showed a significant relationship between the place of residence and occupation of the subjects with all the fields of the “motivating factors to quit” questionnaire (p < 0.05). Only “family” item had a significant relationship with retention in the treatment (p < 0.05).

Conclusion

Considering the relationship between the family item and retention in the treatment, it seems that informing the patient’s family about the importance of encouraging, supporting and quit plan can be an effective help in increasing retention in the treatment.

KEYWORDS:

• Substance use
• retention in the treatment
• motivation to start treatment

View correction statement:

Correction

Acknowledgments

The research group would like to thank all the patients and psychologists working in addiction treatment centers cooperated to collecting the data of interest.

Authors’ contributions

All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation and data collection were performed by HA, FK and ZY. HT, HL, HS and AA carried out data analysis, and all others provided critical comments on that. The first draft of the manuscript was written by HS, HT, and FK, and all authors commented on the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Ethical considerations

This research was approved by the ethics committee of the North Khorasan University of Medical Sciences (IR.NKUMS.REC.1398.092).

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Informed consent was obtained from all participants prior to the survey.

Correction Statement

This article was originally published with errors, which have now been corrected in the online version. Please see Correction (http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14659891.2023.2182484)

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the North Khorasan University of Medical Sciences, Bojnurd, Iran.