SURVEY OF THE ROLE OF VIRTUAL SOCIAL NETWORKS IN THE MANAGEMENT AND PROCESS IMPROVEMENT OF ALCOHOL ABSTINENCE

Background and Aim : According to the World Health Organization in 2018, 3 million people die each year because of alcohol abuse in the world, which it be include 3.5% of all deaths. Alcohol abuse, in addition to death and disability, has reduced the quality of life for consumers and their families and has caused many social problems. Today, health informatics-based interventions such as virtual social networks and mobile phone applications have the potential to treat disease and care management. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of mental health-base virtual social networks in managing and improving the recovery of alcohol abuse.Methods : This study was conducted as a review. At first, the key words of alcohol abuse, abstinence and virtual social networks were searched in PubMed, Scopus, Science direct, and Google Scholar databases, and 20 articles were reviewed according to the criteria of the study.Results : Four articles (20%) out of 20 articles that looked at the role of virtual social networks in the management and improvement of alcohol abstinence, concluded that the impact of virtual social networks on alcohol abstinence were greater than the family impact. In addition, in 20 articles, the impact of social support for members of virtual social network on abstinence and life style change was studied which was positively evaluated in all cases. In 12 articles (60%), it was concluded that virtual social networks have reduced the number of high-risk friends and increased the number of low-risk friends. In eight papers (40%), the increasing in the duration of abstinence was reported through activity in virtual social networks. As well as, in 20 articles, alcohol consumption was monitored because of communication with the virtual network friends, which decreasing trend was observed in all cases.Conclusion : The results of this study demonstrate the positive impact of interventions through virtual social networks on improving the recovery process of patients with alcohol abuse. Therefore, the design and implementation of virtual social networks in the field of mental health is recommended as one of the methods of management of abstinence duration and acquiring self-care skills in alcohol abuse patients

Keywords:

alcohol abuse , abstinence , virtual social networks