Family and Stigmatization: Coping Experience of Persons with Substance Use Disorders in North Central Nigeria

Abstract

In northern Nigeria, stigma has been used as a means of discouraging drug use because of the claim that substance users are responsible for their choices, in this line many families also adopted the same measure as a way of chastising family members involved in drug use. This qualitative study on stigma investigated the personal experiences of 40 people with a history of drug use who are receiving treatment in a facility. The study used a purposive sampling technique to obtain information from participants through interviews. Statistically, this study also obtained data from 261 participants admitted to the same facility over 7 years ago. From this population, 59.4% were diagnosed with Substance Use Disorder (SUD), while 3.8% were diagnosed with Substance Use Disorder comorbid mental illness. Compare to females, there were more males at 85.1%. Furthermore, 55.0% are between the ages of 16 to 30 years of age, making it the highest age group that participated in the study. On marital status singles made up the highest number at 86.4%, participants raised by a single parent were 2 which is .9%. Based on family type, the mean obtained was 1.18 and SD of .387 these participants were grouped into a monogamous and polygamous family. Two hypotheses raised in this study predicted that “there is likelihood that person with substance use disorder will have a stigmatized experience” and “Persons with substance use disorder will have ways to cope with stigmatization” were tested to be significant, the Nvivo software was used in analysing the data obtained from the interviews. The outcome of the study suggests that family members are often the first point of stigmatization for drug-using persons in most families in North-central Nigeria.