Research problem and justification for choosing it
Discuss about the Substance Abuse Disorder in Malaysia.
In order to conduct a research, it becomes extremely important to conduct a social analysis to identify a social problem and to evaluate the urgency of discussing the problem for the benefit of the mankind. The problem which would be chosen should be such that it has become a concern to the nation and different concerned authorities are trying hard to mitigate the problem. In order to choose a problem, care should be taken that enough facts and figures should be present which would support the researcher’s cause of choosing of the problem. After correct selection of the issue, proper research questions and objectives need to be set which will eventually set the course of actions of the research accordingly. The following report has chosen an issue, justified the rationale behind it and provided proper facts and figures. It has also prepared correct research questions and objectives which if handled successfully will help to discover facts that will help in developing health policies required to mitigate the problem.
The leading incidents of death and poor quality life of the inhabitants of Malaysia is mainly due to substance abuse disorders. The most commonly used drugs in the present day society of Malaysia include heroin, methamphetamine and many different types of amphetamine type stimulants. These also include kratam, cannabis and ketamine. The main concern that is giving a very hard time to the government is the increased dependency on the methamphetamine. Statistical data suggests that seizures are the main result of the substance abuse disorders and has been recorded to be of the highest concern in the last few years (Bazazi et al., 2015). Opioid is being considered to be one of the most widely used drugs in the society and the use of other drugs is also increasing in the society to a large extent. This disorder results in huge impacts not only on the individual who is abusing the drug but also have harmful effects on the family members as well. It results in devastating impact on the physical and mental health on the abuser affecting the psychological well being of the individual (Hser et al., 2016). Moreover drug addiction is also resulting in a huge burden on the government of Malaysia. This is because they are requiring huge amount of enforcements from the authorities and also drains available health care resources which could have been allocated for severe chronic healthcare ailments.
Problems and consequences of the issue that result in urgency to research over the topic
Different types of treatments have been initiated by the governments over a number of years out of which some have become successful while others required more researches in the treatment. Until the years of the late 1990, treatment of drug addiction was initiated in different parts of Malaysia and during those times enforcement of rehabilitation was found to be the main mode of treatment and different detention centers were introduced (Chie et al., 2015). However the success of the detention centers were later stated by the researchers to be controversial as they had noted a number of high post detention relapse rate. Another type of treatment was also introduced by the governmental health system for those individuals suffering form opioid dependence and was called the substitution therapy. This actually started in the year 2001 with the help of buprenorphine (Mak et al., 2014). Following this, another therapy that was introduced was the Methadone Replacement Therapy in the year 2005. It was introduced with the plan of expanding at a scale which would have covered all healthcare centers by the year 2015. Although many initiatives have been taken by the government, the rate of substance abuse could not be reduced. Moreover the government strategy to introduce treatment therapies for abusers should be set as a secondary concern with the primary concern of realizing the main factors that are resulting in the more number of individuals of the present day societies (Culbert et al., 2016). The realization of the main reasons as well as the factors that are leading to the increased rates of substance abuse disorders will help the policy makers to prepare guidelines that will in turn help to reduce the rates. The initiatives from the policymakers, governments, community systems to realize the contributing factors and thereby provide changes in such a way so that the effects of the factors on the life of different individual’s decreases, would ultimately help in turning the situation. Once the causes of the substance addiction are realized the concerned authorities will work on them to reduce the effect or modify situations by which such factors will eventually dissolve (Shetty, Shetty & Rao, 2015). Therefore, in order to achieve this, it is very important to know the contributing factors that may be social, cultural, economical, physical, and emotional and many others. Hence proper research for the identification of the contributing factors for developing substance addiction is to be ventured.
Facts and figures to support the research
Such high rise of substance abuse had resulted in poor quality lives. A large number of disorders result like cardiovascular diseases. This may include angina, arrhythmias, myocardial infarction and others. Moreover, lung diseases and different mental disorders take place. The later includes depression, bipolar disorders and many others and therefore mental health patients number are gradually increasing in Malaysia and rehabilitations are having increased demands. Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C have also been found to occur in many cases. Cancer is another harmful chronic disorder that results from acute substance abuse cases (Culbert et al., 2016). These diseases in turn increase the chance of suffering and hospitalization states also increase. As a result there is flow of finance over treatments from the households resulting in poor quality lives of not only the affected individuals but also the family members. Moreover, it is also seen that often such individuals tend to lose their employment as they cannot give their best performance and hence lose their jobs, this results in financial crisis (Krishnan et al., 2016). These results in unhealthy lifestyles like living in cheap poor quality houses which actually result in improper health die to unhygienic surrounding. Moreover adolescents engaged in substance abuse lose their academic focus and hence turn out to be poor performer and compromises their quality future lives. Lack of education in their lives also causes more consumption of drugs and unhealthy food items leading to poor quality life. Hence, it is very important to analyze the problem and find out the factors that are causing these individuals to choose this option of substance abuse in their lives (Hser et al., 2016).
In order to shed more light on the urgency of the research, several facts and data can be provided which will create the ground determining the importance of the research. Statistical data represented by many esteemed dailies shows that about a total of 131,841 drug addicts are found to be registered in Malaysia in the period between January 2010 and February 2016 which had been claimed by the home ministry of the nation. It has been claimed by the minister Datuk Seri Dr Ahmad Zahid Hamidi that report released by the National Drug Information System, National Anti-Drug Agency (AADK), about 127797 drug addicts are male and about 4044 are women among the total number of drug addicts. Statistics also suggested that drug abusers who are adolescents that is about the age of 19 and also below it have amounted to about 8732 (Wikkersham et al., 2016). The total number of people who are addicted to the use of drugs and alcohol between the age 20 and 39 accounted for about 93,044. The last category of the drug abusers who are 40 years old and above is recorded to be as high as 29,355. Information that can be stated in this context is the report provided by the AADK client profile management system states that within the time period of 2011 to 2015, about 20731 people were found to be undergoing treatment as well as rehabilitation at different cure and care rehabilitation centers of Malaysia whole quality of life was being tried to improve by the healthcare experts through proper treatments and therapies (Desrosiers et al., 20160. Moreover reports published in the year 2016 also suggested that almost 46% percent of between cases have been reported that is about 9563 new cases have been reported by the different concerned authorities which is clearly depicting the urgent need of analyzing the causes that is resulting in the increase and thereby planning to stop the increase or even decrease the rate of increase of abuse of drugs (Razali & Kliewer, 2015). It has been astonishing to see that in the year 2015, about 1973 which was about 41 % of the 4838 drug abusers who were undergoing treatment fell back in to their old habit of drug abuse resulting in more or less failure of the therapeutic treatment that they were undergoing. This resulted in loss of resources of the healthcare sectors (Singh et al., 2013). Although number of drugs abuses in the category of females was less than the male drug addicts but form the year 2010 to 2015, about 3889 females were noted out of which 538 people or about 14% went back into the old habit. About 3351 or 86 % of cases were new drug addicts in the female categories.
Treatment methods for substance abuse disorder in Malaysia
A large number of individuals develop physical as well as psychological dependence which ultimately results in the addiction taking over their lives leading to destruction of the quality of their lives. Many individuals often commit crime as they require excess finance to carry on with their addiction that ultimately makes them criminals and affect his life. Many of the individuals suffer from chronic mental and physical disorders that act as threat to their lives. Moreover they also fail to reach their potential as most of the time they remain intoxicated and fail to utilize any advantageous situation that may help them in their academic or professional career in their workplace (Krishnan et al., 2016). Moreover they also face several accidents when they drive cars or perform any activities that require concentration like working in high buildings, risky works in factories and many others. Often drug overdose affects their lives. Moreover, they also get engaged in a revolving cycle where they are imprisoned, released, again takes in drugs, re imprisoned and so on. They face difficulty in achieving future possibilities in schools, colleges and universities and fail to maintain steady employment in their workplace. Domestic violence, elder abuse and similar others also results. Hence it becomes extremely important for the researchers to conduct social analysis and identify the contributing factors and the igniters that result in taking of drugs and becoming addicted (Viknasingam et al., 2015). Following these, researchers will find out how these factors act as determinants of health and will eventually bring out strategies that will help to resolve the factors helping such individual to live a happy and contented life.
Therefore the research question would be
- “What are the contributing factors that lead individual in Malaysia develop the habit of drug abuse?”
- Another research question would be “how would the policy makers develop strategies that would help in mitigation of the issues of drug addiction?
The objective that would be set for the research is:
- Find out the main contributing factors that lead to drug abuse among individuals
- To explore the different situations that urges drug addiction in people
- To develop idea about the Psychological perspective when a individual decides to initiate drug intake/
- To explore the feelings of satisfaction that occurs in them after them intake drugs.
Conclusion:
It can thereby be assured that when a research would be conducted on this topic, the research question as well as the objectives would help to arrange the procedural steps of the researches. Once the research is conducted successfully, the result will help the government, the policy makers as well as the concerned authorities to take proper steps which will help in mitigating the issues at a root level. This will in turn decrease the chances of spending more healthcare resources on the drug addicts and will help in preserve g them for other chronic ailments
References:
Bazazi, A. R., Zelenev, A., Fu, J. J., Yee, I., Kamarulzaman, A., & Altice, F. L. (2015). High prevalence of non-fatal overdose among people who inject drugs in Malaysia: Correlates of overdose and implications for overdose prevention from a cross-sectional study. International Journal of Drug Policy, 26(7), 675-681.
Chie, Q. T., Tam, C. L., Bonn, G., Wong, C. P., Dang, H. M., & Khairuddin, R. (2015). Drug Abuse, Relapse, and Prevention Education in Malaysia: Perspective of University Students Through a Mixed Methods Approach. Frontiers in psychiatry, 6.
Culbert, G. J., Pillai, V., Bick, J., Al-Darraji, H. A., Wickersham, J. A., Wegman, M. P., … & Altice, F. L. (2016). Confronting the HIV, tuberculosis, addiction, and incarceration Syndemic in Southeast Asia: lessons learned from Malaysia. Journal of Neuroimmune Pharmacology, 11(3), 446-455.
Desrosiers, A., Chooi, W. T., Zaharim, N. M., Ahmad, I., Mohd Yasin, M. A., Syed Jaapar, S. Z., … & Chawarski, M. C. (2016). Emerging Drug Use Trends in Kelantan, Malaysia. Journal of psychoactive drugs, 48(3), 218-226.
Hser, Y. I., Liang, D., Lan, Y. C., Vicknasingam, B. K., & Chakrabarti, A. (2016). Drug abuse, HIV, and HCV in Asian countries. Journal of Neuroimmune Pharmacology, 11(3), 383-393.
Krishnan, A., Brown, S. E., Ghani, M. A., Khan, F., Kamarulzaman, A., & Altice, F. L. (2016). Pretreatment drug use characteristics and experiences among patients in a voluntary substance abuse treatment center in Malaysia: A mixed-methods approach. Substance abuse, 37(4), 542-549.
Mak, K. K., Lai, C. M., Watanabe, H., Kim, D. I., Bahar, N., Ramos, M., … & Cheng, C. (2014). Epidemiology of internet behaviors and addiction among adolescents in six Asian countries. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 17(11), 720-728.
Razali, M. M., & Kliewer, W. (2015). Risk and protective factors for recreational and hard drug use among Malaysian adolescents and young adults. Addictive behaviors, 50, 149-156.
Shetty, C. K., Shetty, S. S., & Rao, M. U. (2015). Challenges and Remedies Attributed Towards the Changing Trends of Drug Abuse from Traditional to Amphetamine Derivatives in Malaysia-A Critical Review. Research Journal of Pharmacy and Technology, 8(9), 1325-1330.
Singh, D., Chawarski, M. C., Schottenfeld, R., & Vicknasingam, B. (2013). Substance abuse and the HIV situation in Malaysia. Journal of food and drug analysis, 21(4), S46-S51.
Vicknasingam, B., Dazali, M. N. M., Singh, D., Schottenfeld, R. S., & Chawarski, M. C. (2015). Buprenorphine/naloxone treatment practices in Malaysia: Results of national surveys of physicians and patients. Drug and alcohol dependence, 152, 164-169.
Wickersham, J. A., Loeliger, K. B., Marcus, R., Pillai, V., Kamarulzaman, A., & Altice, F. L. (2016). Patterns of substance use and correlates of lifetime and active injection drug use among women in Malaysia. The American journal of drug and alcohol abuse, 42(1), 98-110.
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