Impact and Coping in Italian Families of Drug and Alcohol Users

Abstract

This article presents the results of a detailed interview study with 113 family members (FMs) of people with serious alcohol or drug problems, drawn from three different areas of Italy: Ravenna, a medium-sized town in the North (n = 37), and two large cities, in the Centre (Rome, n = 26), and the South (Naples, n = 50). Interviewers used a semi-structured grid covering a range of areas, including the history of the relative's substance misuse, family member's health and well-being, coping, social support, and hopes and expectations for the future. Interviews were analyzed using Grounded Theory. This qualitative analysis of the data defined core categories, which allowed a multidimensional model of coping to be developed, taking into account participants' motivations, thoughts, plans, and behavior. This model highlights the multiple reciprocal interconnections underlying coping. The results demonstrate that family members of people with alcohol or drug problems in Italy suffer in similar ways to family members elsewhere. However, although there are great similarities between these results and results from other countries (Orford 2005a), the importance of the family, both as a central theme in the interviews and occupying a key role within Italy, stands out, as does the role played by interpersonal and relational bonds within the Italian social environment. A range of areas are discussed further.

Keywords:

• coping
• family members
• impact
• Italy
• substance misusers

Acknowledgements

Thanks to: the Ministry of Health, Department for Prevention and Communication, General Management for Health, which funded this work; the staff of Ravenna district services, and Alessandra Genualdo collaborating with the Psychiatric Unit of Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Rome, all the Centro per le Famiglie and Ser.T. staff of Asl Napoli 1, who undertook interviews. Also, thanks to Stefano Vecchio, Director of Servizio Dipendenze, and Gabriella Ferrari Bravo, coordinator of Centro per le famiglie, all of whom participated in all of the phases of this research; Bruna Zani, Dean of the Faculty of Psychology of the Bologna University, and Gino Pozzi of Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Roma for assistance during all the phases of the Italian research; Alex Copello, for help and assistance in the earlier stages of the project in Italy; and the ADF group as a whole (Jim Orford, Lorna Templeton, Alex Copello, Richard Velleman) for the ideas, methods, and inspiration. A special thanks to the family members who took part in the project and who gave permission for their information to be used in this project. Thanks also to the editor and one anonymous reviewer for their helpful comments on a previous version of this article.

Notes

¹The Ministry Of Health, Department for Prevention and Communication, General Management for Health, financed the project through the resources of the National Fund for the Fight against Drugs. The realization of the research was entrusted to the Department of Relational Sciences “G. Iacono” of the University Federico II of Naples, which has supervised all the implementation phases in its role as executive body.

²Quotes from interviews are coded by location (NA for Naples, RM for Rome, and B for Ravenna [the research team were from the University of Bologna, near Ravenna]). Family members are signified as FMs, substance misusing relatives are signified as Us (for users).

³Ser.T. is the drug treatment service.