Behavioural immunity and post-traumatic growth processes: community mental health insights from rehabilitation facilities in Jos, Nigeria

Abstract

Despite increasing rehabilitation efforts in Nigeria, little is known about how individuals experience psychological growth, and the high prevalence of individuals diagnosed with SUDs in Nigeria has challenged ongoing rehabilitation efforts. Prevailing research and treatment favour the negative model, focusing more on the negative factors. This enhances the internalisation of self-inflicted victimhood, which leaves victims in the grip of helplessness and hopelessness. I investigated SUD-related growth and behavioural immunity within the substance use addiction rehabilitation community. Specifically, the contributions of self-stigma, social support, personality, and behavioural immunity in SUD-related growth outcomes were examined. Convergent mixed methods design was utilised with 138 participants for the quantitative approach, 24 using qualitative interviews, and15 participants in two separate focus group discussion sessions. The purposive sampling strategy for the qualitative study and a total population sampling was used for the quantitative study. Data were collected using surveys, FGD, and interviews, and analysed using SPSS and NVivo software, respectively. Results: The quantitative results indicated that self-stigma did not make significant contributions to the posttraumatic growth experiences of participants, but it significantly predicted participants’ post-traumatic depreciation experiences, f (1, 136) =14.17, .000, P<.05 with medium effect size=0.32. In addition, perceived social support subscales (MSPSS significant others, family, and friends) did not make significant contributions to both posttraumatic growth and posttraumatic depreciation. But there was a weak positive relationship between perceived social support from family and significant others, and posttraumatic growth; MSPSS (significant others) r (138) =.20, .018, P<.05, 05; MSPSS (family) r (138) =.18, .039, P<.05, 2-tailed. Personality subscales (BFI extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, and openness) before addiction set in did not significantly predict participants’ post-traumatic growth and post-traumatic depreciation experiences. Nonetheless, there was a weak relationship between the personality subscale of extraversion (before addiction set in) and posttraumatic depreciation: BFI extraversion, r (138) = .17, .05, P<.05; Similarly, the results for personality (BFI now) showed that the current personality profiles (all BFI subscales) of participants did not produce any significant changes in both their post-traumatic growth and post-traumatic depreciation outcomes. Furthermore, the qualitative findings indicated that post-traumatic growth and post-traumatic depreciation co-occur to produce a range of possible substance use disorder growth-related outcomes, and found behavioural immunity as defensive reactions that participants exhibited. Subsequently, the Substance-Use Disorder Growth- Course Framework (SUD G-C Frame) was produced to explain substance use disorder growth-related dynamics for participants in rehabilitation, using the grounded theory method. Conclusion: The findings from the study found a blend of positive and negative psychology paradigms and found behavioural immunity as a potential to understanding substance use disorder growth research. A framework was derived from data using grounded theory.