Rehab while in Prison

This study had 50 participants and all of them were dependent on the use of alcohol according to the DSM-V. Most of the participants in the study were users of alcohol as well as other drugs. This study was done in a Spanish prison. Once the prisoners came in they choose to be a part of this rehabilitation program. It involved many different types of therapy such as group therapy, occupational therapy, controlling stimulus therapy, and contracts. Participants were evaluated at 1 month, 6 months, and 1 year during the program.

Through this study the researchers found that there was a high correlation between the people who dropped out of the program, and the people who had psychological disorders. People with the psychological disorders were found to have started abusing substances at a much younger age then the other participants. Participants with psychological disorders had a hard time getting use to the program and were more aggressive than the other participants. Over the year of the program 25 of the participants had dropped out of the program. People who were motivated to change were the people who were most successful in the program. The motivated people realized that they had a problem, and this caused them to want to destroy the addiction making them more successful. 

Implications to this study is that prisoners can thrive in a rehabilitation program in a prison if they want to truly get help. People need to be educated in the fact that they are addicted to drugs. Helping people realize that they have a problem can make them more successful in their treatment process. Another implication is that young people should be told that using drugs could cause the possibility of them having a psychological disorder later in life. 

A limitation to this study is that self-report was used in this study and the researchers cannot determine if the participants tell the truth or not.

Abstract 

 Casares-López, M. J., González-Menéndez, A., Fernández, P., Secades-Villa, R., & Fernández-Hermida, J. R. (2012). What predicts retention on an in-prison drug treatment program? The Spanish Journal of Psychology, 15(3), 1349-60.