PS375 Unit 5 Psychosocial Risk Factors Paper Example

Five Checks on a Ten-Item Form: A PS375 Unit 5 Risk Factors Paper

[Student Name]

Purdue University Global

PS375: Psychology of Addiction

Unit 5 Risk Factors Paper

[Instructor Name]

[Date]

The writer, the program, the client and every detail are composite and illustrative; the articles cited are real.

Why Look at Risk

Kayla began treatment at our Tulsa outpatient program in October after a nonfatal overdose. Her path to opioid use began with a prescription after a car accident, but many people receive opioids after injuries and never develop a disorder. Understanding why some people are more vulnerable than others is part of understanding addiction, and part of planning treatment that addresses more than the drug.

With her consent, her counselor asked Kayla to complete an adverse childhood experiences questionnaire during her second week, as the program does with all adult clients.

Adverse Childhood Experiences

Felitti et al. (1998) asked thousands of adults having routine checkups in a California health plan whether they had lived through seven kinds of childhood adversity, covering abuse of several kinds and a troubled household marked by substance use, mental illness, domestic violence or a family member in prison. Over half named at least one category, and each added category brought a step up in adult risks such as alcoholism, drug use, depression and suicide attempts. Risk climbed with every category added.

Dube et al. (2003) used the same study population to examine illicit drug use. With every added adverse experience, the odds of trying drugs at a young age rose, and those with five or more categories reported drug problems and addiction at several times the rate of those with none. The authors suggested that drug use may, for some people, be a way of coping with the effects of childhood trauma.

Kayla's Form

Kayla checked five categories: a parent with a drinking problem, parents who divorced, a household member who went to prison, emotional neglect and a parent with depression. She said her father drank heavily, left when she was nine and was later imprisoned; her mother worked two jobs and, in Kayla's words, "was too sad to notice us."

Her score placed her in the group Dube and colleagues found at substantially higher risk. Her own account fit the coping explanation: she said that the oxycodone, from the first week, had made her feel "safe, like nothing could get to me," a feeling she said she had not known as a child.

The prescription started the opioids; the childhood may explain why they felt like safety.

A Wider Framework

Hawkins et al. (1992) reviewed risk and protective factors for alcohol and drug problems in adolescence and early adulthood and organized them across levels: community factors such as availability of drugs and community norms; family factors such as parental drug use and family conflict; school factors such as academic failure and low commitment to school; and individual and peer factors such as early antisocial behavior and friends who use drugs. They argued that prevention should reduce risk factors and strengthen protective factors across these levels.

Kayla's history shows risk at several levels. Her family had parental alcohol misuse, conflict and loss. She left high school in eleventh grade. At the time of her accident, she lived in a neighborhood where prescription pills were easy to buy, and her closest friend sold them. These factors do not cause addiction on their own, but together they increased her vulnerability.

Protective Factors

Risk factors are only half of the framework. Protective factors can reduce the chance of addiction and support recovery. Kayla has several. Her grandmother, who raised her for two years after her father left, remains close and now cares for her son during appointments. Her son, who starts kindergarten next fall, is a strong motivation; she said, "I want him to have a mother who notices him." She completed her high school equivalency certificate last year and wants to become a certified nursing assistant. And her mother, now remarried and stable, has offered support.

Comparing Two Clients

Dale's form, completed in the same month, makes a useful contrast. He checked one category, parental divorce, and described a stable childhood on a farm outside Okmulgee. His drinking developed over twenty years in a work culture where crews drank together after every shift and where heavy drinking was normal and admired. For Dale, the strongest risk factors in Hawkins and colleagues' framework sit in the community and peer levels, not the family. The comparison shows why a single questionnaire cannot explain addiction. Two clients at the same program can arrive by very different roads, and treatment that targets the wrong road, such as trauma therapy for Dale or a focus on work culture for Kayla, would miss what matters most for each.

Risk Is Not Only Past

Some of Kayla's risk factors are still present. Her old friend still lives three streets away, and the neighborhood still has pills for sale. Current risk factors are more changeable than childhood ones, and her plan addresses them directly: a new phone number, a route that avoids her friend's street and a list of people she can call when cravings rise. Her counselor described this as treating the risks that are still within reach while the trauma therapy works on the older ones. Kayla said the distinction made the history feel less like a sentence she had to serve.

What This Means for Treatment

Recognizing Kayla's childhood experiences changed her treatment plan in two ways. Her counselor referred her for trauma-focused therapy alongside her opioid use disorder treatment, since unaddressed trauma could make relapse more likely. And the plan builds on her protective factors: her grandmother is part of her support plan, and her counselor connected her to a nursing assistant training program.

Cautions

Adverse childhood experiences are risk factors, not destiny. Many people with high scores never develop addiction, and many people with addiction report none. The questionnaire also leaves out experiences such as community violence, discrimination and poverty, which matter in many clients' lives. Asking about childhood trauma requires care, and the program offers the questionnaire only after rapport is established and with support available afterward.

Conclusion

Kayla's five adverse childhood experiences placed her among those Felitti and colleagues and Dube and colleagues found at substantially higher risk of drug use problems, and her own words suggest opioids served as a way of coping. Hawkins and colleagues' framework shows risk across family, school and community, and her grandmother, son and goals show protection that treatment can build on.

References

Dube, S. R., Felitti, V. J., Dong, M., Chapman, D. P., Giles, W. H., & Anda, R. F. (2003). Childhood abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction and the risk of illicit drug use: The adverse childhood experiences study. Pediatrics, 111(3), 564-572. https://doi.org/10.1542/peds.111.3.564

Felitti, V. J., Anda, R. F., Nordenberg, D., Williamson, D. F., Spitz, A. M., Edwards, V., Koss, M. P., & Marks, J. S. (1998). Relationship of childhood abuse and household dysfunction to many of the leading causes of death in adults: The adverse childhood experiences (ACE) study. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 14(4), 245-258. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0749-3797(98)00017-8

Hawkins, J. D., Catalano, R. F., & Miller, J. Y. (1992). Risk and protective factors for alcohol and other drug problems in adolescence and early adulthood: Implications for substance abuse prevention. Psychological Bulletin, 112(1), 64-105. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.112.1.64