Measuring The Socio-Economic Costs of Drug Addiction In Rehabilitation Centers of Lahore

Abstract

The two major objectives of this study are to determine the direct, indirect, and social costs borne by patients seeking treatment at drug rehabilitation centers and measure their subjective well-being. Data had been gathered from 61 respondents residing at three different rehabilitation centers through structured questionnaires and in-depth interviews. For the purpose of analysis, Wilcoxon Signed-Rank test (a non-parametric technique for non-random sampling) has been used to compare the difference in economic burden on households of drug addicts after they got indulged in addiction and during treatment. The similar technique along with the descriptive analysis has been utilized to conduct hypothesis testing and study the difference between the subjective well-being of drug addicts “after addiction” and “during treatment”. The subjective well-being of addicts has been measured by making indices for physical well-being, psychological well-being, attitude towards life, perception of family and relatives, and trustworthiness. Ethnographic study had also been conducted to study the behavior of patients residing at rehabilitation centers. A significant difference is observed in which the households’ overall income has been disturbed and even deteriorated due to the indulgence in addiction of a single person. Results have revealed that majority of the drug addicts under treatment consider their conditions better off as compared to their addiction phase. Moreover, descriptive analyses have revealed that majority of the respondents belonged to the age group of primary youth, majority of the patients have relapsed at least once in their lifetimes, majority started taking drugs within their primary youth, majority of the respondents had no family history of addiction, there were more than 1 earning members present in the house of many of the respondents, majority of the respondents had middle but below metric education level, majority of the addicts’ treatment costs were being borne by their parents, and the average total monthly cost of treatment was more than the per capita income of Pakistan.