Subjective Well-Being of the Drug Addicts and Non-Addicts in Bangladesh

Abstract

The present study was designed to investigate the Subjective Well-being (SWB) of the drug addicts and non-addicts in Bangladesh. A total of seven hundred and sixteen male adult respondents were used as subjects in the present study. Half of them (n = 358) were addicts and rest half (n = 358) were non-addicts. DSM-IV suggested criteria of addiction were followed in selecting the addict respondents. Among the addicts one hundred and ninety six were hospitalized and the remaining one hundred sixty two were non-hospitalized. Their age ranged from 20 to 48. Ninety of them were married and two hundred sixty eight were unmarried. The duration of their addiction was one year to twenty-three years. A purposive sampling technique was followed in selecting the addict respondents. The non-addict respondents were selected employing matched pair technique. Each of them was selected matching with one of the addict respondents in respect to their age, SP, X, occupation, family income, educational level, marital status and residential background. All the respondents (addicts and non-addicts) were selected from different parts of the country. A Bangla adaptation of the short version of the Subjective Well-being (SWB) Questionnaire of Nagpal and Sell ( 1985) was administered to measure the Subjective Well-being status of both the addict and non­addict respondents. The Questionnaire measures eight dimensions of well-being. These were Subjective Well-being Positive Affect, Subjective Well-being Negative Affect, Mental Mastery, Rootedness & Belongingness, Structural and Cohesive aspects, Density of Social network, Security in Health and Socio-economic crisis, and Expectation achievement harmony. Comparisons were made between the addict and non-addict respondents on overall SWB, as well as on each of the eight dimensions separately. The data were also analyzed in order to study the effect of types of addiction, duration of addiction, and SES of the addict respondents. The data were analyzed employing t-test, ANOY A and Person's product moment method of correlation coefficient. Four hypotheses were considered in this study: (l) The Subjective Well­being of the drug addict respondents will be poorer than that of the non­addict respondents. (2) The Subjective Well-being of the addict respondents varies in degrees as a result of types of addiction. (3) The Subjective Well-being of the addict respondents decreases as a result of increase in their duration of addiction. (4) The Subjective Well-being of the addict respondents is negatively related to their socio-economic status. The results reveal the following findings; (1) Subjective Well-being (SWB) of the addict respondents was significantly poorer than. that of the non-addict respondents. (2) Poly drug addiction further degenerates the Structural & cohesive aspect and Security in Health & Socio-economic crisis phenomenon of SWB than mono drug and mixed drug addiction. 3) There is no significant effect of duration of addiction on the degeneration of the overall SWB. But duration of addiction has further effect on the degeneration of the SWB in Rootedness & Belongingness, and Expectation-achievement harmony. On the other hand the Negative Affect of the well-being was found to increase with the increase of duration of addiction. (4) The Subjective Well-being is negatively related to the socio-economic status of the addict respondents. It has been found that the SWB of the individual of the upper socio-economic class is more affected than that of the individual of lower socio-economic class by drug addiction. Finally, these findings suggest that drug addiction degenerates Subjective Well-being of the individual.