Ali Moradi - Department of Educational Sciences and Psychology, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Hamadan Branch, Eslamic Azad University, Hamadan, Iran.
Elham Gholami - Department of Educational Sciences and Psychology, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Hamadan Branch, Eslamic Azad University, Hamadan, Iran.
Tahereh Haghtalab - Department of Psychology, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Malayer University, Malayer, Iran.
Iraj Safaaerad - Department of Educational Sciences and Psychology, Faculty of Literature and Humanities, Hamadan Branch, Eslamic Azad University, Hamadan, Iran.

Background:  Substance abuse is one of the most common psychiatric problems in the world. It results from the interaction of genetic and environmental factors with unfavorable psychosocial statuses. Objectives: The present study aimed to compare psychological hardiness between individuals with and without Substance Use Disorder (SUD) in Hamadan City, Iran. Materials and Methods: The present causal-comparative study was conducted on 200 people (individuals with and without SUD) referring to substance abuse treatment centers in Hamadan, during 2016. The participants were selected by the stratified random sampling method. The required data were collected by the Ahvaz Psychological Hardiness Questionnaire and analyzed by the independent-samples t-test. Results: The results indicated a significant difference in psychological hardiness among participants with and without SUD. Accordingly, the psychological hardiness of the participants with SUD was generally lower than that of the participants without SUD (t=3.33, df=198, P-value of the first column <0.05, P-value of the Levene’s test =0.37). Conclusion: Psychological hardiness is statistically different in individuals with and without SUD.

Psychological hardiness, Substance abusers, Hamadan