PARTICULAR FACTORS AFFECTING THE PROBLEM OF WOMEN S ADDICTION IN IRAN

Background and Aim : Women s addiction is a complicated and multifaceted problem. Women s addiction issues, along other socio-cultural issues, are essential and indispensable for its effective understanding and evaluation. The prevalence of women s addiction in Iran has been reported less than the average in developed countries. Some, like Straussner (1997) and Crown foundation, have stated the etiology and experience of women on addiction. Women tendency towards addiction has been fluctuating and recently more, accounting for 11.4% of the admissions to health centers was in 1977, about 5% in 2001, and about 10% recently. Women s addiction in society has become accelerated, so that in some studies in the age group 15 to 29 years old there is one addicted woman for every 6.6 men and 16.6 addicted women in the age group 45-64. The purpose of the study was to extract the specific factors of female addiction issues in Iran and to present the suggested solutions Methods : To identify the problem of women addiction in preventative, therapeutic and outbreak aspects, 26 small and large studies with items were examined according to the goal of the researcher with secondary analysis. Then appropriate items concepts and categories were extracted from secondary analysis and qualitative interviews from 46 activists on women s addiction using Grounded Theory method.Results : In this study, 24 protection items and 20 risk items were identified in three individual, social control, and policy-making concepts. In the individual category, spiritual beliefs, curiosity and psychology; in the social control group, stigma, role pressure, and gaining identity; and in policy-making, the weakness in policy-making and implementation of the specific program were as the most important addiction issues for women and girls with social category having higher weight.Conclusion : : Although according to gender statistics, women are not at the stage of the crisis addiction, women s addiction is not one of the most prominent categories of women regarding outbreak, prevention, and treatment in all countries of the world. Recognizing all the specific causes of addiction among women is unavoidable due to the age group of women and girls. Proposed packages in outbreak and etiology and presenting effective solutions are affected by the specific factors and correlations of women s addiction in Iran. Thus, the recognition and updating the etiology of addiction based on women s features in larger scales is recommended.