An Exploration of High School Completion and its Psychosocial Correlates in Adult Males with Substance Use Disorders

Abstract

Substance use disorders (SUD) are a prominent public health problem in the United States of America. Substance use disorders, by definition, beget significant health and social consequences. The purpose of this study was to investigate the association between negative educational outcomes (failure to complete high school and low-literacy) and behavioral, clinical, and social correlates in people with SUD. It was hypothesized that men with high school completion would report less negative clinical, social, and behavioral correlates. Independent analyses ran for each behavioral, clinical, and social correlate failed to reject the null hypothesis that differences between the high school completion and non-completion groups were not statistically significant. This study utilized intake data for a sample of socially disadvantaged adult males with SUD at an inpatient treatment facility in a large urban area. Of significance, only 33.9% of this sample reported completing high school. Census Data estimates that 81.2% of adults in the same county are high school graduates, suggesting a significant relationship with high school non-completion in this group of people with SUD. This research presents a starting point for a conversation related to accommodations for literacy challenges in treatment programs for SUD. The theoretical basis for this study relates to the underlying development of competence and identity that is achieved through educational success early in life, which can affect later life outcomes (Erikson, 1963). The relationship between high school completion and reported confidence for achieving sobriety in the study was not significant. A separate analysis also found non-significant results using reported school-aged reading and writing problems as the independent variable. Among many limitations, the time that the data was collected and the age range of the sample is thought to have impacted the results. Future directions include recommendation to investigate the influence of educational attainment on treatment outcomes. A secondary analysis explored SUD and spirituality. Ellis and Shoenfeld (1990) argued that the spirituality component of Alcoholics Anonymous, which is largely incorporated into inpatient SUD treatment for socially disadvantaged populations, was impeding people from potential recovery. In this study men who placed value on spirituality were statistically significantly more confident in their ability to find treatment success than those who did not place value on spirituality, indicating an association between spirituality and confidence for success in treatment.