The Effectiveness of Life Skills Training on the Level of Hope in Recovering Addicts Referring to the Zahedan Psychiatric Center

Not paying enough attention to psychological issues is one of the factors that can lead to recovering addicts lapsing back to drug use. Paying attention to component of hope can be a motivating factor in maintaining and sustaining the new conditions for those who quit drugs. Therefore, this study was conducted to evaluate the effectiveness of life skills training on the level of hope of the addicts referring to the Zahedan Psychiatric Center to quit their drug use.
In this quasi-experimental study, 90 drug addicts who were referred to the psychiatric center of Zahedan were selected. Forty-five of these addicts were placed in the intervention group and 45 of them were placed in the control group. Data were collected twice (pretest, post-test design) by demographic questionnaire and Miller’s Hope Questionnaire. The intervention group received some life skills training for 4 sessions per week in the group form, while the control group received no intervention. After 8 weeks from the end of the intervention, the questionnaires were completed again by samples. Using SPSS software version 20, this study applied independent t-test, paired t-test and covariance analysis, to address the objective of the study.
The mean score of hope before training in intervention and control group was 180.22 ± 22.68 and 170.08 ± 24.82, respectively, while it increased to 199.77 ± 30.53 in the intervention group and decreased to 166.20 ± 21.93 in the control group. Consequently, life skills training brought about significant increase in terms of hope in the intervention group (P Findings showed that life skills training can increase the level of hope in addicts quitting drug in addiction recovery. Considering the fact that promotion of hope can lead to favorable behavior changes regarding drug abstinence, it is recommended that life skills training programs be offered for these people in drug rehabilitation centers.