Predisposing factors for substance abuse among elderly people referring to Qazvin addiction treatment centers, Iran (2017)

Background: Drug abuse is one of the most important global issue that has become a psychological, social, and family disaster. Objective: The present study was aimed to determine the causes of substance abuse in the elderly. Methods: In this descriptive cross-sectional study, 120 addicted elderly people referred to addiction treatment centers of Qazvin, Iran were selected by convenience sampling in 2017. The demographic and researcher-made substance abuse tendency questionnaires were applied for data collection. Data were analyzed by descriptive statistics including frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation. Findings: The mean age and age of the onset of drug abuse were 58.83±8.91 and 34.44±13.37 years, respectively. The majority of the elderly were male (113 subjects, 94.1%), and 102 (85.1%) elders were married. Opium was the most common abused drug (75.8%) and more than half of them (64.2%) experienced drug discontinuation. Environmental factors were the important reason of intendancy towards drug abuse among elderly people. Conclusion: In this study, the most important reason of drug abuse in the elderly people was environmental factors that were consisted; easy access to drug, lack of sports and recreational facilities and the presence of addicted friends.