Search

Sleep duration and indices of disturbed sleep, such as night-time waking and day-time sleep, were investigated in amphetamine users following hospital admission and withdrawal from the drug. Compared to controls, the amphetamine group showed an initial period of oversleeping and, towards the end of the first week, they showed a considerable degree of reduced sleep which persisted for the 20 days of this study. There was greater variability in sleep duration within the amphetamine group on almost all nights, and the variability in sleep duration from one night to the next was also greater. More night-time sleep disturbance was evident among the amphetamine ex-users. These results are discussed with respect to previous work and the pattern is seen to be more complex than had been imagined. A tentative neurochemical model is suggested and clinical implications are considered.

Female drug addicts and female criminals have received relatively little research attention. This study investigates the personality correlates of female addicts attending a London drug clinic convicted for drug-related, violent and other offences. More than half of the sample had at least one conviction, and fourteen out of thirty-seven had convictions for non-drug-related offences. Convicted subjects were more extraverted than non-convicted subjects. This result may reflect some relationship between impulsivity and criminal behaviour, though other personality factors may interact with extraversion.

Addicts attending a London drug dependence clinic (N = 147) completed questionnaires exploring their attitudes towards their own drug taking. Three factors were extracted from the data and these were called 'Hooked', 'Sick' and 'Therapeutic Optimism'. In-patients, regular out-patients and new out-patients, differed in attitudes towards drug taking. New out-patients regarded themselves as more Hooked and Sick than did in-patients. Regular out-patients had lower therapeutic optimism than did the other two groups. Whether these differences arise through self-selection, that is, those who regard themselves as more sick and hooked tend to drop out early, or whether increasing contact with the clinic leads to shifts in these attitudes is discussed.

Addicts who use illicit drugs despite receiving a maintenance prescription present a difficult management problem for drug dependence clinics. This study looks at a small group of such addicts and at their response to the provision of a temporary increase in their prescribed opiates. The results indicate that this increase led to a reduction in illicit drug use and to improvements in social functioning. These and other findings are discussed. It is suggested that clinics should be more prepared to consider such temporary increases, but the need for careful monitoring and for the involvement of more than one member of the treatment team is stressed.

In an investigation of personality differences between oral and intravenous drug addicts, 59 subjects attending a London clinic were given the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. Both groups scored highly on the neuroticism and psychoticism dimensions, though oral users were found to have significantly higher scores on both of these scales. High P scorers have been found to be cold, unfriendly, hostile, etc., and it is suggested that the lower P scores of the intravenous users may be partly due to possible hostility-reducing effects of the narcotics used by this group. Other implications of these findings are also discussed.