Research Proposal: Perspectives of Substance Abuse Practitioners

This research proposal aims to understand the perspectives of practitioners who provide treatments for individuals suffering from substance abuse. The objectives include analyzing the reasons behind substance abuse, determining the various treatments used by practitioners, and recommending ways to assess the effectiveness of these treatments. The research questions address the reasons for substance abuse and the available treatments. The background highlights the prevalence of substance abuse, particularly among young people, and its destructive impact. The rationale emphasizes the need to analyze the causes of substance abuse and the effectiveness of different treatment methods, including rehabilitation. The literature review explores the reasons for substance abuse, such as peer pressure and depression, and the effectiveness of various treatments, including rehabilitation centers and medications. The research methodology employs a deductive approach, qualitative data collection through surveys and interviews, and a descriptive research design. Primary data will be collected from interviews with individuals who have experienced substance abuse and practitioners. The research limitations involve time and resource constraints. The timescale outlines the phases of the research over eight weeks, from issue analysis to primary data collection. References to relevant books and journals are included.

Research Proposal

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Aim..................................................................................................................................................1
Objectives........................................................................................................................................1
Research questions...........................................................................................................................1
Background......................................................................................................................................1
Rationale..........................................................................................................................................1
Literature review..............................................................................................................................1
Research Methodology....................................................................................................................2
Timescale.........................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

Aim
To understand the perspectives of the practitioners who provide treatments for the people
suffering from substance abuse.
Objectives
 To analyse the reasons why people do substance abuse.
 To determine various treatments practitioners use to help people doing substance abuse.
 To recommend various ways to check whether the treatment they provide is effective or
not.
Research questions
Q1. What are the reasons people do substance abuse?
Q2. What treatments can be used to overcome it?
Background
Substance abuse is being considered as one of the most common trap that a huge amount of
people has fallen into. Specially, it has been observed between the teens and young ones.
The reasons why they do substance abuse can be peer pressure or in spite of trying every
possible drug just because to have fun. Then, in spite of fun, a huge amount of people get
addict to it and starts walking on the path of destroying their life. Although various practices
have been observed for providing treatment to people doing substance abuse but somewhere
it affects the life of an individual.
Rationale
The research is being done in order to analyse the reasons why people fall in doing
substance abuse. Although smoking and taking alcohol is also considered as dangerous for health
but drugs can largely affect the life of a person. There can be various reasons why people do
substance abuse such as many my do it because of depression, few might do it just because their
friends are doing so and they feel ashamed of not doing, which is also called as peer pressure.
Practitioners have verified various methods that can help such people but it also requires the
support and patience of the person as well.
Literature review
Reasons why people do substance abuse
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Doing substance abuse is like a trap in which initially, the person thinks quite cool about
it but in the later stages, realise that it is quite hard to come out of this. Young ones between the
age of 11 and 18 have been observed as on the maximum rate doing substance abuse. There can
be various reasons for doing this such as some people do substance abuse because of dealing
with the depressions and frustration. Although this is not the right way of getting out of
depression but people find this as one. Some do it because the people in which they are in
company with are doing so, as not to feel ashamed, they also start trying it (Kandel and Kandel,
2015). It can be considered as the peer pressure in which one just for the sake of maintaining the
respect also indulges in the specific task without considering the side effects or any other
harmful factors of it.
Effectiveness of treatments provided by practitioners
There are a variety of treatments that the practitioners can provide to the people dealing
with substance abuse. One of the best ways that the practitioners suggest is admitting the specific
person in rehabilitation. It is because in rehabilitation centres, the person is being involved in
other activities and tasks just to make the person busy so that they cannot think about doing
substance abuse. Although it is quite tough in the starting but it helps after a while. The people
are being done various household chores so that they can stay busy and it can help in diverting
their mind from taking substance. Various drugs are also there that can help people doing
substance abuse (Lewis, Dana and Blevins, 2014). But out of all, admission of the person in
rehabilitation centre has been observed as much effective in treating such people. But it requires
the support and patience of the person as well. The person should also have control on
themselves after coming out of the rehabilitation and also should keep in mind that how much
their life has been affected by doing substance abuse and staying away from it can help them in
focusing and making their life much more better.
Research Methodology
Research can be considered as an idea which means to search for various facts and
figures in a very systematic way so that it can help all the factors while considering the whole
research and its functions. A research method is termed as an appropriate way or plan which
helps in setting all the guidelines that are to be used while exploring the data and information of
the research (Tanner-Smith, Wilson and Lipsey, 2013). All the essential compounds of the
research are described as under:
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Research approach
The research approach is termed as a plan that has to be made before the research so that
all the methods and techniques stay clear enough while doing the research. It can be classified as
inductive as well as deductive (Lê Cook and et.al., 2014). In this research, the researcher will
make use of the deductive approach as it will help in analysing that the techniques practitioners
use for people doing substance abuse are effective or not.
Research strategy
Research strategy includes a variety of techniques that the researcher can use for making
the whole process of the research more simpler and easier. It can be done in two ways,
quantitatively or qualitatively. In this research, the researcher will make use of the qualitative
data as in investigating the techniques, surveys and interviews from such people can help more
than the books and online material.
Research design
The designing of the research is termed as the combination of all the ways in gathering all
the information and data regarding the analysis of why people do substance abuse and what
practitioners take measures for preventing these people from substance abuse. It can be
categorised in five types which involves the descriptive, experimental, co relational, semi
experimental and review (Gelenberg, Bassuk and Schoonover, 2013. ). In this research, the
researcher will make use of the descriptive type because it will help in evaluating the practices
more easily as it seems like a longitudinal case study.
Data Collection
Data Collection can be considered as a way of gathering of the data and it can be done in
two ways, either the primary way or by the secondary way. The primary data is classified as that
data that is being gathered for the first time and the secondary data is the data that has been
already collected by some external body (Mondale, 2014). The primary sources involve the data
from interviews, surveys, focused groups whereas the secondary sources involves the
information from books, online or journals. In this research, the researcher will make use of the
primary data as they can take interviews from people who have been suffering from substance
abuse before and the practitioners that what they think how much effective the treatments are.
Research Limitations
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Research limitations can be considered as any such factor that may act as a challenge or
barrier for the research. If the researcher focuses on increasing the time of the research just
because to make it more effective, they should also consider the fact that longer the time, more
the resources that must be required and it will involve more cost as well. So, if these factors are
not available at that time, it may result as a barrier for the research, so the researcher should
focus on completing the research within the given deadline.
Timescale
Basis Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 5 Week 6 Week 7 Week 8
Issue
analysis
Determinati
on of the
aim
Objectives
setting
Based on
themes,
data and
information
that have
been
gathered.
Implementa
tion of the
research
methodolog
y
Primary
4

data and
information
collection
5

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Gelenberg, A. J., Bassuk, E. L. and Schoonover, S. C., 2013. The practitioner’s guide to
psychoactive drugs. Springer Science & Business Media.
Kandel, D. and Kandel, E., 2015. The Gateway Hypothesis of substance abuse: developmental,
biological and societal perspectives. Acta Paediatrica. 104(2). pp.130-137.
Lê Cook, B. And et.al., 2014. Trends in smoking among adults with mental illness and
association between mental health treatment and smoking cessation. Jama. 311(2). pp.172-182.
Lewis, J. A., Dana, R. Q. and Blevins, G. A., 2014. Substance abuse counseling. Cengage
Learning.
Mondale, W. F., 2014. Treatment of child abuse: Common ground for mental health, medical,
and legal practitioners. JHU Press.
Pickard, H. and Fazel, S., 2013. Substance abuse as a risk factor for violence in mental illness:
some implications for forensic psychiatric practice and clinical ethics. Current opinion in
psychiatry. 26(4). p.349.
Tanner-Smith, E. E., Wilson, S. J. and Lipsey, M. W., 2013. The comparative effectiveness of
outpatient treatment for adolescent substance abuse: A meta-analysis. Journal of substance abuse
treatment. 44(2). pp.145-158.
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