Parastoo Baharvand - Social Determinants of Health Research Center, Lorestan University of Medical Science, Khorramabad, Iran

Background and Aim : The crisis of drug addiction is a problem that affects many countries in the world. One of the problems that further complicate the phenomenon of addiction is the issue of relapse. The present study was conducted to determine the factors affecting relapse into addiction from the perspective of patients presenting to addiction rehabilitation centers in Khorramabad, Iran. Methods : This cross-sectional study was conducted in 2016 on patients presenting to addiction rehab centers in Khorramabad with a history of at least one relapse into addiction and selected through multi-stage sampling. Data were collected using a researcher-made questionnaire with a confirmed face and content validity and a reliability of 0.87. The data were analyzed in SPSS-21. Results : This study examined 480 patients with a history of addiction relapse and a mean age of 33.1 ± 8.8 years; 93.1% of the participants were male. The most frequent factors affecting addiction relapse included pleasure-seeking (44.8%) in the personal domain, unemployment (40.4%) and the availability of substances (39.8%) in the socioeconomic domain, parents’ neglect and mistreatment (36.3%) in the family domain, and finally a mere emphasis on therapy (48.9%) in the treatment domain. Of these domains, socioeconomic factors had the highest and treatment factors the lowest effect on addiction relapse. Conclusion : Overall, preventing the risk factors of addiction relapse is a multidimensional program, especially in relation to the economic problems faced by these people, and creating job opportunities and solving the issue of unemployment can help prevent relapse into addiction in addicts undergoing treatment

Addiction, Khorramabad, relapse, substance abuse