Behavioral, Emotional and Social Factors Related to Addiction

Substance dependence is a serious threat to health of individuals. Not only substance dependence disrupts individual's life, but also it contributes many problems for the family and society. In fact, addiction is one of the major social traumas that causes structural changes in the economic, social, political, and cultural systems of communities. Due to the large and widespread addiction problem, prevention of this problem is imperative. Preventing this problem requires identifying risk factors and protectors against drug dependence. Several studies have shown that lack of behavioral skills, disturbance in the emotional regulation along with effective social factors are important for predicting addiction. Addiction in Iran, like other eastern countries, has a particular pattern that differs from Western countries. In such situation, investigation to produce information and internal knowledge can play a major role in improving policies, planning and interventions against addiction. In this review article, we attempt to collect the behavioral, emotional and social structures related to addiction in Iranian studies. According to this study, in personal level, coping strategies, factors related to education, factors related to school, defensive mechanism of substance abusers, family conditions, and demographic factors; in emotional level, emotional intelligence, sensation seeking, and emotion regulation strategies; and in social level, anomic situation, social capital, social interactions, social support, gap generation and spirituality play important roles in tendency, onset, and continuing substance abuse.