Hussam Aly Sayed Murad, Marwan Bakarman
The associations observed are statistically significant, but modest. However, we believe that they remain clinically relevant, as even small associations may have practical significance. The study findings could support designing and implementing culturally tailored, family-centered preventive and therapeutic strategies and interventions, particularly for young adults, in Arab communities.
BACKGROUND: Examining associations of substance use (SU) pattern and family factors with severity of SU-related problems is crucial for designing effective interventions. This study was designed to address this under-researched topic in the Arab societies, utilizing the validated Arabic Drug Abuse Screening Test-10 (DAST-10).
METHODS: This observational cross-sectional study enrolled 360 young adult drug users from Alamal Complex for Mental Health, Saudi Arabia. The questions were about SU pattern and family-related variables.
RESULTS: Parental divorce, family problems, low family emotional support, poor family control, recent SU (during the past year), polysubstance use, and frequent SU showed significant correlations with more severe DAST-categories. Sociodemographic differences, financial capacity, age of starting use, and duration of use showed non-significant correlations with DAST-categories. The groups of complete family, parental death, and no recent SU were associated with significantly lower odds ratios (OR: 0.51, 0.31, 0.14) (p: 0.013, 0.001, 0.010) indicating associations with lower DAST-categories compared with parental divorce and recent SU groups, respectively. In contrast, groups of no and limited emotional family support, polysubstance use, and SU less than one year were associated with significantly higher odds ratios (OR: 3.00, 3.20, 14.53, 1.78) (p: 0.005, 0.003, 0.004, 0.031) indicating associations with higher DAST-categories compared with constant emotional family support, single-substance use, and SU more than one year groups respectively. The users with parental divorce, family problems, no and limited family emotional support, no and limited family control, recent SU, frequent use, and polysubstance use showed significantly higher distributions in substantial and severe DAST categories.
CONCLUSIONS: The associations observed are statistically significant, but modest. However, we believe that they remain clinically relevant, as even small associations may have practical significance. The study findings could support designing and implementing culturally tailored, family-centered preventive and therapeutic strategies and interventions, particularly for young adults, in Arab communities.