The diploma thesis called "Stress among Methamphetamine Users" focuses on the phenomenon of stress in general, but especially on the strategies of coping with stressful situations. These so-called coping strategies are given great attention in contemporary research. The thesis inquires into the development of the Czech drug scene and particularly focuses on methamphetamine as a typical "Czech drug". It describes the period of methamphetamine early expansion in the Czech drug scene, the subsequent period of radical intervention of justice and police into the resulting socially unbearable situation, and the recent respective state of affairs. It also deals with the risks associated with the use of methamphetamine and the various forms of its application. In this respect it logically gives attention to the issue of drug addiction in general and the methamphetamine addiction in particular. An indispensable part of the thesis is a description of the phenomenon of stress according to selected distinguished experts in this area Paulík (2010), Baštecká (2009) a Joshi (2007). The initial discussion of specifically defined and operationalized stress is followed by a discussion of coping in general. First, the emergence of coping is discussed. The theoretical section provides definitions of various scientifically developed coping strategies and deals with the situation around the SVF 78 instrument as well as with the stress coping strategies and the phenomenon of stress itself. The section discusses different coping strategies and identifies their respective pitfalls as well as their influence on people from the holistic model viewpoint. The theoretical section is concluded with the topic of social work with drug addicts and its basic pillars. Describes the aims, research questions and hypotheses of the thesis. Two aims were selected for the thesis: "to find out which coping strategies are used by methamphetamine users" and "to find out how coping strategies change over a prolonged period of methamphetamine use". Three research questions and four associated hypotheses were formulated on the basis of these aims. The hypotheses are operationalized in this chapter. The methodological section discusses the SVF 78 instrument which was used to gather data from drug addicted respondents. The data were gathered in contact centres in South Bohemia via quantitative strategy of data gathering. Next, the research sample consisting of 50 respondents and the ethical aspects of the research are described. An indispensable part of the section is also a description of the statistical methods used for data evaluation. Next chapter, called "Results", describes the research sample with respect to respondents' sex, with the actual ratio being 54 percent of female respondents and 46 percent of male respondents. The respondents' age is described here as well together with an average age, median and standard deviations. Another thing mentioned is respondents' time period of methamphetamine use and their highest achieved education. The discussion section focuses on obtained results and their comparison with actual researches. Despite very interesting results it is necessary to assert that none of the hypotheses was statistically verified. However, analysis of similar studies leads us to a discovery of an analogous problem. The most interesting study in this regards appears to be Konopka et al. (2013) which found no significant differences in coping strategies adopted by benzodiazepine users. In spite of this it is possible to point at frequency differences which were found among methamphetamine users. They were found in particular with respect to the relation between negative coping strategies ratio and period time of methamphetamine use, where negative coping strategies were preferred by respondents using methamphetamine for more than 11 years etc. The concluding section summarizes the research results and reflects on the aims of the thesis.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:nusl.cz/oai:invenio.nusl.cz:188702 |
| Date | January 2015 |
| Creators | FILIPOVÁ, Zuzana |
| Source Sets | Czech ETDs |
| Language | Czech |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/masterThesis |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/restrictedAccess |
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