Social Support: The Main Factor for Retention of Addiction Treatment

Aim: Substance abuse is a substantial threat and problem to public health. The goal of drug abuse treatment is to return people to a productive normal situation in the family, workplace, and community. Treatment dropout is one of the major problems, encountered by the treatment programs. The maintenance of treatment is associated with retention in treatment, and many factors are associated with retention. The main purpose of this study is to examine the factors that play important role in retention of addiction treatment. Methods: This is a qualitative research with conventional content analysis method. Purposive sampling was applied and continued until data saturation was achieved. The participants were 22 volunteers, including outpatients, physicians and psychotherapists. The method of data collection was semi-structured face to face interview (30- 40 minutes). All interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Findings: By content analysis, two categories were obtained, including emotional and informational support. The main common theme of categories was social support, which was the major requirement to retain the treatment among drug abuse outpatients. Conclusion: The findings of this study showed that social support is one of the essential services to stop or reduce substance abuse. Recognizing this factor could improve interaction between the family, clinical staff and patients in addiction treatment retention.