Women drug abuse in Europe : Gender identity - Irefrea

- Diagnostic criteria and treatment objectives which are inappropriate for women,listed by Hagan (1994).- Perception of the scale of costs being greater than the benefits of a social nature:loss of social respectability or relationship with the doctor on “confessing” heraddiction, as Thom indicated (1995).- Women consider prostitution, the “stigma” of the diagnosis and the dominationof the male as serious problems when giving up drugs, as Sargent (1992)explained and Swift (1996).- Higher number of concomitant mental problems in women, pointed out byO’Brien and McLlellan (1996) and Hagan (1994).- Feelings of inability to face the treatment, low concept of self-efficiency,combined with a pessimistic attitude to the possibilities of change, NIDA (1994)and Etorre (1996).- Difficulty in access to the few residential treatment places because of pregnancyor having to look after children, Taylor (1995).The main problems observed are the lack of child care facilities in the therapeuticprogrammes according to Reed (1987), Blume (1994), Allen (1994) and Taylor(1995), and the fear of losing custody of their children if their drug use and dependencyis notified, (Allen 1994, Blume 1994, NIDA 1994, Taylor 1995 and Thom 1995).It is important to take into account, that even when free of financial dependencies,role expectations in the woman addict associated with gender contribute to other formsof dependency which may complicate the phenomenon of the addiction: social roleundervalued in respect of that of men, submission to the male, inability to takedecisions, higher levels of depression and anxiety, low expectations, caring for childrenand particular medical problems. In this way, treatments addressed only at one part offeminine dependency, that of drugs, do not come close to approaching the repercussionof other situations of dependency in women.37