Psychological Ways of Providing Primary Medical Sanitary Help for People who Use Psychoactive Substances

Abstract

The purpose of the research is to study the state of the problem of the usage of psychoactive substances in the institutions of primary health care of Ukraine and in other countries all over the world.

The following theoretical methods of the research were used to solve the tasks formulated in the article: a categorical method, structural and functional methods, the methods of the analysis, systematization, modeling, generalization. Also in our research we used empirical methods, such as the observation, the interview, a questionnaire, testing, the method of expert assessments.

The results of the research. The urgency of the provision of comprehensive primary health care to those who use psychoactive substances is in line with the strategic task of preserving and improving the health of Ukrainian citizens. The problem of the usage of psychoactive substances among the population of different countries, in particular in Ukraine, is one of the most important medical and social issues of nowadays. At the beginning of 2016, 1.7 million of people in Ukraine who were in need of psychiatric and narcological care had been registered in the health care system. It is almost 4% of the total population of the country. In the structure of mental disorders in 2015, the most common mental and behavioral disorders due to the use of psychoactive substances (alcohol, narcotic substances), representing 58.41% of all reported cases. There were 8.9% of health disorders which are related to stress, neurotic and somatoform disorders, there were 1.8% mood disorders. Among persons with a pathology of the psyche and behavior there were registered in 2015, there had been 62.7% of people of working age. In 2020 there were 1.9 million of people in Ukraine who were in need of psychiatric and narcological care had been registered in the health care system. There were 10.1% of health disorders which are related to stress, neurotic and somatoform disorders, there were 2.3% mood disorders.

Our own researches data for 2020 also indicate a high level of PS usage among young people: on average, 86.1% of pupils used any alcohol drink at least once in their lives. In the age of 17 this figure is 79.4%, and at 16–17 years old it is approaching 88%.

Conclusions. We explain these results having been obtained by us by COVID-19 pandemic in the whole world. In Ukraine people began to use more psychoactive substances. Let’s try to explain this logic with the help of psychological frames. It should be noted that the rich phenomenology of ecopsychological expeditions and the small number of scientific researches of the mental state of individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic allowed us to identify some phenomena of Environmental Psychology categorically and, for the first time, although to determine well-known scientific concepts which have been used. 

It should be noted at once that under the influence of the COVID-19 pandemic human behavior acquires a sufficiently explicit eco-attribution. Eco-attribution (from the Greek oikos – the environment and from Latin – attribuo – to give, to provide) is a lifestyle that provides the primary importance of the environment, the natural expediency of caring for nature, a kind of harmony of a man and a nature, as well as the world around us. Eco-attribution or eco-attributive behavior presupposes the understanding not only of well-balanced harmonizations in the space of nature, but also in the living environment in general, as well as adequate inclusion of human activity in the environment, performance of its activities, on the one hand, in accordance with the laws of nature taking into account the conditions of existence in the society, taking into account the pandemic COVID-19 and working out its own style of the behavior, which is natural and viable under such conditions.

Eco-attributive behavior and the activity involve the search for adequate forms and principles, especially for biological adaptation and protection in changes of living conditions. As we predicted, the characteristic features of eco-psychological stress, manifested in the person’s desire to change the situation, significantly changes the very behavior and activities of people. Personal content, which is now formed in the case of absence of practical experience and practical skills of adaptation to such experiences and actions, forms, as it turned out, not flexible behavior. The basis of such behavior was rigid, torpedo mental states, pandemic or «covid» accentuations, anxiety and fear.