e-Learning Resources

15D Health and Social Care Issue – Addiction

Elements of Addiction
Physiological craving
  • An intense feeling of need and prolonged desire; yearning for the substance or behavior
Withdrawal symptoms
  • Show negative emotional responses / discomfort when attempting to cut down the substance or stop the behaviour
Tolerance
  • Increasing amounts of the substance or the frequency of behavior to maintain same level of satisfaction

 

 

Types of Addiction
Substance
  • Drug (drug addiction)
  • Alcohol (alcohol abuse)
  • Tobacco (smoking)
Behavioural
  • Pathological Gambling
  • Compulsive Buying
  • Internet Addiction
  • Workaholism

 

 

Reasons for Addictions
Community
  • the higher the availability of a substance in the community and higher cultural acceptance of social use of the substance
Family
  • persistent family conflicts and problems
  • parents’ influence
Peer
  • peer pressure
Individual Physical and mental aspects
  • physical - with psychiatric disorders such as depression or anxiety
  • mental - with poor impulse control or low stress tolerance / poor problem-solving skills
Personal history / experience
  • from disrupted homes or have been abused
  • has the initial experience of changing his/her mood with a substance

 

 

Impacts on health and social care systems
Health Care System
  • Physical and psychological illnesses – Increase the burden of health care system
Social Care System
  • Behavioural and Social Problems – Increase the burden of social care system

 

 

Possible Means and Solutions
Medication
  • Reducing craving, replacing one drug (e.g. heroin) with another (e.g. methadone), blocking the effect of a certain drug, causing unpleasant reactions when the addicted drug is used, or improving one’s psychological health
Behavioural therapy
  • Building skills to resist addictive activity
  • Replacing addictive activity with constructive and rewarding ones, and
  • Improving problem-solving abilities
Treatment provided by health care professionals
  • Clinic
  • In-patient Service
  • Community Service and rehabilitation
Support services provided by social care professionals
  • Counselling
  • Talks and Workshops
  • Health ambassadors
  • Support Network

Power-point

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See all e-Learning resources

Booklet

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Narcotics Division, Security Bureau

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Tasks & Worksheets (Coming Soon)

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Assessing my learning

What are the impacts and implications of addiction?
How can we help the addicts at different levels?

Note-taking Tools

One Note
Docs

My Data Bank

One Drive
Google Drive

Collaboration Platform

Google Sites
schoology

Presentation Tools

Google Slides
Sway
Some examples of self-study tools for studying HMSC are listed above. They are not learning materials. Users need to upload relevant content to the relevant learning platforms for self-study purposes.