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This study aimed to develop the Thai gaming disorder scale (T-GDS) in children and adolescents to serve medical staff and investigate the effectiveness of the scale.

This is a research and development study. In total, 217 participants were children and adolescents between 8–18 years, then classified into four groups according to Children's Global Assessment Scale (CGAS). The T-GDS was developed; its content validity was then investigated by three experts. Mock assessment was conducted on 15 individuals replicating the actual sample group before the assessment was tested on the sample group by two medical staff. The quality of the scale is assessed through reliability, validity and cut-off point analysis.

Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) extracted four components with 18 items meeting the criteria and have Cronbach's alpha of 0.95. The analysis of ROC curve, to determine the cut-off point, associated the mild game addiction group with T-GDS score = 14; moderate group score = 28; and severe group score = 42.

Investigation of cut-off point by practitioners is vital to compare whether it aligns with the point determined by doctors in game addiction diagnosis. Future research should select critical item in order to reduce the number of questions and construct validity should be examined using confirmatory factor analysis.

This paper provides a comprehensive insight regarding severity of game addiction based on related criteria. As a result, treatment appropriate for each type of severity could be enhanced.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the prevalence and profile of mothers among women who sought treatment for drug addiction, as well as the therapeutic progression of these patients.

A sample of 180 Spanish women with addiction problems was assessed. Information was collected on the patients’ socio-demographic characteristics, consumption variables and psychological symptoms.

Of the total sample, 22.2 per cent (n = 40) of the women seeking treatment for substance use disorder were mothers. Compared with women without children, mothers scored significantly higher on several EuropASI and psychological variables. Specifically, mothers presented with more medical problems, worse employment/financial situations, and more severity in alcohol use. Moreover, having a history of lifetime physical and/or sexual abuse was related to belonging to the group of mothers. Regarding therapeutic progression, no statistically significant differences in the retention rate were found between mothers and non-mothers.

The results of this study show that mothers generally have more severe problems than non-mothers. Therefore, comprehensive, continuum-based, and client-centred care for mothers is paramount for effective treatment in mothers. The implications of these results for further research and clinical practice are discussed.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the effects of two types of community-based, residential treatment programs among justice involved persons with dual diagnoses.

A randomized clinical trial examined treatment conditions among justice involved persons with substance use disorders who reported high baseline levels of psychiatric severity indicative of diagnosable psychiatric comorbidity. Participants (n=39) were randomly assigned to one of three treatment conditions upon discharge from inpatient treatment for substance use disorders: a professionally staffed, integrated residential treatment setting (therapeutic community), a self-run residential setting (Oxford House), or a treatment-specific aftercare referral (usual care). Levels of psychiatric severity, a global estimate of current psychopathological problem severity, were measured at two years as the outcome.

Participants randomly assigned to residential conditions reported significant reductions in psychiatric severity whereas those assigned to the usual care condition reported significant increases. There were no significant differences in psychiatric severity levels between residential conditions.

Findings suggest that cost-effective, self-run residential settings such as Oxford Houses provide benefits comparable to professionally run residential integrated treatments for justice involved persons who have dual diagnoses.

Results support the utilization of low-cost, community-based treatments for a highly marginalized population.

Little is known about residential treatments that reduce psychiatric severity for this population. Results extend the body of knowledge regarding the effects of community-based, residential integrated treatment and the Oxford House model.

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between psychiatric severity and stress among persons utilizing medication assisted treatment (MAT), and there is a need to identify resources that promote resilience against these risk factors. Although recovery homes might complement pharmacological interventions for persons using MAT, a lack of homophily (e.g. similar experiences) among residents could produce stress and increase psychiatric severity. The purpose of this paper is to examine stress and psychiatric severity in relation to recovery outcomes, and whether homophily moderated these relationships.

A cross-sectional analysis was conducted among recovery home residents who were recruited from the USA, including those using (n = 40) and not using (n = 132) MAT. Participants’ levels of psychiatric severity, stress, abstinence self-efficacy and quality of life were assessed in addition to whether residents using MAT were living with at least one other resident who used MAT. Moderated mediation analyses were conducted to examine whether homophily among residents using MAT would moderate the mediating effects of stress on the relationships between psychiatric severity and recovery outcomes (abstinence-self efficacy, quality of life).

Mediating effects were observed but they were significant only through homophily. Although stress increased the negative effects of psychiatric severity among residents using MAT, significantly lesser effects were observed among those living with residents using MAT.

Although psychiatric (problem) severity and stress threaten recovery for persons with substance use disorders, little is known how they impact recovery among those living in community-based settings such as recovery homes. In addition, there is a need to identify community resources that would complement MAT protocols, as patients who use MAT face unique stressors related to their sense of shared interests and experiences (i.e. homophily) when developing social bonds with others in recovery.

This study suggests the social networks within recovery homes reduce the effects of psychiatric severity and stress, and that these effects are lessened for residents who use MAT when they live with others who also use MAT.

Little is known about recovery home residents who use MAT and have high psychiatric severity. Findings suggest homophily among persons using MAT living in recovery homes who have high psychiatric severity can promote resilience.

The use and abuse of alcohol is problematic for a person’s social and individual development. Maintenance of abstinence after detoxification programs is difficult for patients who experience a craving, and relapses during the course of the disorder are common. The purpose of this paper is to describe the socio-demographic and clinical features of alcohol-dependent patients by sex and alcohol use status and to analyze the percentage of patients who remained abstinent after 10 months of psychological treatment.

In total, 50 alcohol-dependent patients were enrolled (34 men and 16 women). The patients attended a psychological treatment program at a therapeutic community, Projecte Home Balears, Spain. This paper used the European Addiction Severity Index to collect socio-demographic data and data on alcohol and other drugs and the Trait Meta-Mood Scale-24 to measure emotional management.

Significant differences were observed in occupation (χ² = 9.9; p = 0.007) and duration of alcohol use (U = 137.000; p = 0.005) by sex and hospitalizations during the previous months (χ² = 15.477; p = 0.009) and type of chronic disorder (χ² = 7.6; p = 0.022) and duration (in months) of the longest period of abstinence after treatment in facilities (U = 219.500; p = 0.097) by alcohol use status. The survival analysis showed that 25% of relapses happened after 4.5 months of treatment; at 7.3 months, 50% of the sample remained abstinent.

Women had used alcohol for longer since age at onset than men. Furthermore, after 7.3 months of intensive therapy, 50% of alcohol-dependent patients were abstinent.

Purpose – This study tracks the legal control of the problem of substance abuse.

Methodology/Approach – The chapter explores the “natural history” of the evolution of the social construction of drug use and our collective response to it. Over the past 100 years, our understanding of drug use/abuse and the system for handling drug problems have gone through a series of changes. In the past 20 years or so, provision of treatment for drug offenders within the criminal justice system has rapidly expanded. California's recently enacted Proposition 36 (Prop 36) initiates for the first time on a mass basis the court-supervised drug treatment that began a decade earlier on a much smaller scale with the original drug courts. This chapter compares the Prop 36 program for diverting nonviolent drug offenders into court-supervised treatment with the original drug courts.

Findings – The research shows how court-supervised drug treatment has evolved from a personalized care program in the original drug courts to a mass processing operation under Prop 36. The research finds that the social problem solution of offering treatment to more drug defendants created its own unanticipated consequences and problems, including significant standardization in the operations of the court and a dilution of many useful features that defined the early drug courts.

Practical implications – “Farming out” drug defendants to probation and treatment makes case-processing and treatment potentially less effective therapeutically. The chapter raises questions about how social control can extend its domain without “breaking the bank” and what the consequences are for how social problems are handled.

This study seeks to explore digital natives' mobile usage behaviors and, in turn, develop an analytic framework that helps articulate the underlying components of mobile addiction syndrome (MAS), its severity levels and mobile usage purposes.

The investigation adopts a survey method and a case study. The results of the former are based on 411 random classroom observations and 205 questionnaire responses, and the insights of the latter are derived from 24 interviews and daily observations.

The findings validate five distinctive signs that constitute MAS and their significant correlations with each of the Big Five personality traits. Classroom observations confirm the prevalence of addiction tendency among digital natives in the research context. Seven levels of MAS and six different mobile usage purposes further manifest themselves from case analysis. There appears to be a sharp contrast between the addicted and non-addicted groups in their mobile purposes and behavioral patterns. Additionally, family relationships seem influential in shaping non-addictive mobile usage behaviors.

Psychological perspectives on MAS may be important but insufficient. Empirical investigation on a global scale, especially with distinctive cross-cultural comparisons, will be highly encouraged. How MAS evolves over time should also serve as future research interests.

Teaching pedagogy of college education might need certain adjustments to intrigue digital natives' learning interests. Future managers might also need to adopt better performance measurements for digital natives who barely separate work from personal matters in their mobile devices.

Parents and healthcare institutions may need to develop response mechanism to tackle this global issue at home and in society. The long-term effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on MAS might also deserve global attention.

The analytic framework developed provides an original mechanism that can be valuable in identifying MAS severity and associated behavioral patterns.

Given the scarce literature on alcohol use disorders (AUD) and their treatment in developing countries, this paper aims to explore motivation levels and their correlates among alcohol service users in two residential treatment centres in Kampala, Uganda. This study how motivation levels of Ugandan alcohol service users compare with those from American studies; and the specific factors affecting internal and external motivation in the Ugandan context.

The motivation for treatment was measured among 100 individuals entering AUD treatment using the Texas Christian University (TCU) Treatment needs and Motivation scale. The WHOQoL–BREF, Addiction Severity Index–6 and Hopkins Symptoms Check List–37 were used to measure addiction severity, quality of life (QoL) and psychopathology, respectively. Correlates of motivation were identified using linear regression analyses.

Ugandan service users demonstrated low treatment motivation in the treatment needs a domain. While addiction severity (recent heavy alcohol use) and participating in private treatment were associated with higher internal and external motivation, deterioration in physical and environmental QoL, depressive symptoms and lower education were linked with higher internal motivation.

Different elements affect domains of treatment motivation, requiring attention for clients’ unique needs as influenced by their background, addiction severity, QoL, psychological needs and contextual factors (e.g. treatment setting). Further studies are needed to explore additional correlates of motivation for treatment among alcohol service users in Uganda and to assess the longitudinal impact of motivation on treatment outcomes.

Although motivation has been extensively studied, clinicians are challenged in understanding and explaining motivational dynamics given the multiplicity of factors influencing change-related decisions and behaviours and the diversity in substance-using populations. This need is even bigger in non-Western societies as cultural differences may require differential therapeutic management. This is one of the first studies measuring motivation for AUD treatment in a low-income country and offers insight for understanding motivation dynamics in similar settings.

The purpose of this study is to highlight the overshadowing of the opioid crisis due to Covid-19 pandemic. Opioids are affecting increasing numbers as the current opioid overdose death rate is increasing to 209 per day. While there appears light shining on the end of the Covid-19 pandemic with the advent of a fourth vaccine, there is no such light for the opioid epidemic. Based on a sample of 603 relatively educated adults in NE Ohio, the health harm caused by both crises, prescribing physician blaming, high levels of income loss and physical and emotional burdens shared by the respondents were obvious and striking.

Using Bertram et al. (2014) theory of the blame model, the number of results concerning gender and personally involvement of friends and family members, including men empathy increased with greater knowledge of numbers of addicted opioid users in their personal contracts.

Unfortunately, many women had to remain home taking care of children and elderly loved ones at greater percentages than their male counterparts may account for less empathy as such addicted users have become a burden to economically impaired families. This tendency for placing blame for circumstances with twin crises appears to follow a relatively predictable path as modeled by Bertram et al. (2014) (i.e. denial, justification and excuse).

These are few studies that are studying the amplification effects of the Covid-19 pandemic context on the current opioid crisis.

The purpose of this paper is to examine frequency and correlates of intimate partner violence (IPV) severity perpetrated by heterosexual men receiving treatment for substance use towards a current partner in the past 12 months.

A secondary analysis of a self-reported questionnaire (n=162) completed by men receiving treatment for substance use in England and Brazil was conducted. Types of IPV perpetration (emotional, physical and/or sexual IPV) and frequency of occurrence were assessed. A five level ordinal variable for IPV perpetration severity was created: no IPV, minor; moderate, low severe and high severe. Psychological and cultural correlates of perpetration severity were explored using ordinal logistic regression.

Approximately four in ten men reported perpetrating IPV towards their partner in the past 12 months, one in ten reported perpetrating severe IPV (including hitting with something, kicking or beating, choking or burning, threatening with/using a weapon, sexual IPV and frequent emotional IPV) during this period. A number of correlates of perpetration severity were identified: experiencing childhood physical abuse, witnessing IPV in childhood, perpetrating IPV in previous relationships, committing violence towards another man, controlling behaviours, technology-facilitated abuse, depressive symptoms, having a substance using partner, receiving treatment for illicit drug use, hazardous drinking and poly-drug use.

Despite the small sample size, small to large positive associations were observed between reporting IPV perpetration and several factors. These factors could be targeted to improve identification and assessment of IPV among men receiving treatment for substance use.

A strength of this study methodology is the use of a specific 12 months time frame for the perpetration of IPV towards current partner. The categorisation of levels of IPV perpetration based on types and frequency of violence occurrence was an additional valuable contribution of this study.