research on addiction

Objective: The current study was an attempt to investigate the effectiveness of group therapy with transactional analysis (TA) approach in the reduction of addiction severity among female patients under methadone treatment. Method: A quasi-experimental research design along with pretest-posttest and control group was used in this study. The statistical population of this research consisted of all female drug addicts presenting to one of the addiction treatment centers in Mashhad city in 2016. From among this population, a total of 40 female patients undergoing methadone treatment were selected via purposive sampling method and were randomly assigned to two experimental and control groups. Addiction Severity Index and demographic characteristics questionnaire were the instruments used in this study for data collection purposes. The group therapy intervention with transactional analysis was administered to the experimental group for 10 two-hour sessions (one session per week). Results: The results of this study showed that there was a significant difference between the two groups in terms of the severity of addiction (P <0.001). In the same way, the analysis of each variable showed that the difference between the two groups was significant in terms of psychiatric status, drug use, and alcohol consumption (P <0.001). Conclusion: According to the results of this study, it seems that group therapy with transactional analysis approach is effective in reducing the addictive severity in women undergoing methadone treatment.