Naren Selvaratnam
The Colombo Institute of Research and Psychology, Sri Lanka
Title: Investigating the role of self-efficacy in alcohol and nicotine dependence. A study conducted to provide empirical evidence to generate a therapeutic model for drug dependence to Sri Lanka
Biography
Biography: Naren Selvaratnam
Abstract
Statement of the Problem: Alcohol and nicotine dependence has become one of the main concerns in the country. This is considered to be one of the determinants that debilitate the subjective well-being of many individuals in the country at present. Although cognitive behavior therapy and motivational interviewing are commonly used as recovery interventions through psychiatry, the importance of enhancing efficacy beliefs on self has never been considered separately in both psychiatry and psychology to address dependence. The principal researcher develops a therapeutic model (See figure 1) to investigate the applicability of the model to be used in the country’s blooming field of psychology.
Methodology & Theoretical Orientation: This is a multi-phased study currently been conducted. The current paper is dedicated for the first phase of the study, where the generalized self-efficacy scale (GSES) is culturally adapted and statistically validated on a randomly selected sample. Psychometric properties including reliability and validity were investigated. A second study was conducted to investigate self-efficacy’s ability to predict drug usage/dependence on a conveniently selected sample. A regression analysis was conducted to investigate the proposed hypothesis, and a one-way ANOVA analysis was conducted to investigate the mean self-efficacy scores for non-drug users, alcohol only users, and both alcohol and nicotine users.
Conclusion & Significance: The scale was successfully adapted and validated. GSES generated a reliability of alpha .858, and the 10-item scale demonstrated unidimensionality adhering to original authors findings. This was done through principal component analysis and principal axis factoring. The second study of phase I demonstrated a moderate negative relationship between self-efficacy and drug usage. The one-way ANOVA conducted demonstrated drug users to have a significantly lower score of efficacy compared to non-users. The two studies conducted provided the required empirical evidence to continue with the second phase of the study.