Investigation of interpersonal problem solving skills of substance addicts in terms of addiction severity and socio-demographic variables

The aim of this study was to investigate whether or not the interpersonal problem-solving skills of patients with substance use disorder differ significantly according to the severity of the addiction, duration of substance use, socio-demographic variables and compared to comparison group; and to investigate the relationship between these variables. In addition, this study also investigated the relationship between the sub-dimensions of interpersonal problem-solving skills and the severity of the addiction. The study group consists of 66 patients who were diagnosed with substance use disorder and were receiving treatment at the Istanbul Faculty of Medicine between September 2015 and July 2016. Non-Substance use group (comparison group) consists of 70 people who participated the study the through Google survey application and they all declared that they never received a diagnosis of substance use disorder and they do not meet any exclusion criteria of the study. The interpersonal problem-solving skills were measured by the Interpersonal Problem Solving Inventory (Çam and Tümkaya, 2007) and addiction severity was measured by Addiction Profile Index (Ögel, Evren, Montenegro, ve, Gürol, 2012) and the demographic data was collected through Psycho-Social Personal Information Form which was prepared by the researcher. Collected data were analyzed by SPSS 14.0 software. Kolmogorov-Simirnov test was used to check if data is normally distributed. The normality of Interpersonal Problem Solving Skills Inventory was tested for each 5 sub-dimension. Sub-scales were not normally distributed. Thus non-parametric statistical techniques were used to analyze data: only parametric t-tests was used to compare substance addicts interpersonal problem solving skills with non addicts. Non-parametric Mann-Whitney "U Whit test, and non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis test. In addition, for the continuous variables, the Pearson product moment correlation technique was used. The findings indicated that the functional interpersonal problem solving skills of the substance-addicted group are significantly lower than those of the non-substance-dependent group. There was no significant difference in socio-demographic variables between the substance dependent and non-substance dependent groups. While addiction severity of substance addicts increases in total scores, the tendency to use non-functional skills in the solution of interpersonal problems is increasing. Interpersonal problem solving skills subscales differ significantly between those with high dependence and those with moderate dependence. The results of the research were interpreted and discussed in light of the current literature. Recommendations were made based on the research findings. Keywords: Substance abuse, addiction severity, ınterpersonal problem solving