Addressing the Impact of COVID-19 on Increased Substance Abuse

Addressing the Impact of COVID-19 on Increased Substance Abuse
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Addressing the Impact of COVID-19 on Increased Substance Abuse
Lecture 1
Substance abuse can be addressed by changing the behavior of people. Governments can use health psychology to prevent or reduce substance abuse in the community. For instance, governments can engage health researchers in health psychology to create educational interventions to promote or improve health behaviors (L1). Educational interventions that teach people skills that help them cope with situations that can cause substance abuse are essential in addressing the current substance abuse issue associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic is an unprecedented situation that has forced people into social isolation, among other things, and one of the harmful coping mechanisms has been substance misuse. People need to learn positive coping skills to help them deal with the pandemic and reduce their risk of substance misuse. Governments can employ the services of health psychologists to design nationwide educational interventions to help people cope with the pandemic and engage in healthy behavior.
Lecture 2
Substance abuse and addiction involve compulsive or hard-to-control drug use. Addicts of substance abuse engage in self-defeating behavior, increasing their risk of drug use. Governments can help these individuals by enabling them to eliminate these self-defeating behaviors. One way of achieving this is by ensuring that people have access to attribution therapy (L2) to change their attribution to substance behavior. For instance, those already using or are addicted to drugs can access attribution therapy to attribute rehabilitation to the self to boost their self-esteem and social value. Often, drug addicts get involved in self-defeating behaviors such as self-blaming and guilty. Attribution therapy can help them eliminate these behaviors.
Lecture 3
Governments can also use the message learning approach to address substance abuse during and after the pandemic. The message learning approach proposes that attitudes can be changed through a learning process involving persuasive messages to promote desired attitudes and behavior (L3). They need to use healthcare experts because their words carry weight. Governments can use negatively framed questions, which are more effective in behavior detection (L3), to encourage citizens to screen for substance abuse and eventually get the help they need if they have a substance abuse problem. Governments can still use the same approach to avoid substance abuse related to the pandemic by using positively framed questions, which are more effective in preventing unwanted behaviors (L3), to ensure people are not using substances to cope with the pandemic.
Lecture 4
Another strategy that governments can use to address the problem is social marketing. Social marketing links the desired behavior to the existing interests/concerns of the target group (L4). It uses commercial marketing techniques to promote social change. In relation to substance abuse, this approach can be utilized to encourage drug rehabilitation and prevent substance abuse. Peo...