Abstract

Mads Uffe Pedersen: In-patient treatment of drug abusers. A gender perspective on treatment course and treatment effects

The aim of this article is to discuss whether there are gender differences among drug abusers in treatment when it comes to networking and emotional relations, and how these differences should be taken into account in treatment programmes. The article builds on results from a large-scale investigation into residential treatment of drug addicts in Denmark. 750 drug addicts, referred to 7 different institutions between June 1996 and January 1998, participated in the study; data on 323 of them were collected through interviews or data systems from 6 to 18 months after their finishing the treatment.

Substance-abusing women do better than substance-abusing men after finishing drug-free residential treatment. Twice as many women as men stay drug-free without relapse one year after finishing residential treatment. Women establish a different kind of network and create closer and more intimate relations with other people than do men. Earlier investigations have shown that men have more friends than women. This investigation shows that men in drug abuse treatment may know a lot of people, but women know more people with whom they can talk about their problems.

Women in this Danish study more frequently carry through a drug-free residential treatment programme at centres where there are no clear-cut physical or rule-based divisions between women and men. Their motive for staying in the treatment is more often than that of men consideration for their close network. However, these two residential treatment variables have only a limited connection with the women's abuse pattern after discharge from the centre.

Not least for the female abusers it seems important to allow for close, expressive and verbal relations, not only between women, but in mixed groups. One model could be institutional treatment with possibilities both for single-sex and mixed-sex groups and treatment.