Introduction: Addiction is a psychosocial illness that affects individual’s psychological and physiological dependence. One of the most important issues in this regard is the patient's problems and relapse of substance use. The current study aimed at determining the problems of people discharged from addiction treatment centers and factors associated with relapse of substance use in East Azerbaijan Province, Iran.
Methods: The current qualitative and quantitative (descriptive-analytical) study was conducted on the statistical population of addicts and their families, managers, and specialists of welfare addiction centers in East Azerbaijan Province. After interviewing 30 participants, selected by purposeful sampling, and reaching data saturation, a questionnaire was developed. The statistical population of the quantitative section was people discharged from addiction treatment centers in East Azerbaijan Province, and the study samples were selected using cluster sampling method from three addiction treatment centers; hence, 260 people who had at least one time experience of relapse of substance use were selected. An author-made questionnaire was developed based on the research question as the problems of people discharged from addiction treatment centers. Content validity index and reliability of the author-made questionnaire were examined using internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha). Data were analyzed with SPSS version 21.
Results: In order of preferences, psychological and physical problems (mean rank = 12.87), lack of influential beliefs (11.49), lack of trust and social acceptance (10.74), weakness in tolerance and overcoming temptation (9.76), unemployment and poor socioeconomic status (9.20) were the five main problems of the studied people (X2 = 2489.9, P < 0.01). Also, psychological and physical problems (12.76), lack of influential beliefs (11.47), lack of trust and social acceptance (10.32), weakness in tolerance and overcome temptation (10/10), unemployment and low socioeconomic status (9.50) were the five main factors associated with relapse of substance use (X2 = 2437.1, P < 0.01).
Conclusions: Personal problems, poor socioeconomic status, and family problems were reported as an important factors playing a significant role in the relapse of substance use. Therefore, multi-dimensional planning is recommended to authorities to prevent the relapse of substance use.