Efficacy of Family Counselling Therapy on Patient Relatives of Drug Abusers: A Case of Psychiatric Ward, Specialist Hospital Jalingo, Taraba State Nigeria.

Abstract

The study examined the efficacy of family counselling therapy on patient relatives of drug abusers in psychiatric unit of Specialist Hospital Jalingo, Taraba State. The design involved pre-test and post-test quasi experimental. The study used 12 drug abusers admitted in the psychiatric ward of the hospital as at the time of the study. All the family relation of the 12 drug abuse patients was used for the study sample. The sample were either parents, siblings or care-givers of drug abusers known as “Patient Relative” (PR) at the Psychiatric ward. A four-point scale questionnaire was used in the study. The pre-test result (M= 34.50, SD= 7.20) revealed that family relatives and care givers had little or no idea on how effectual the family counselling therapy could change behaviour of drug abusers before intervention. After intervention, it was discovered that the family counselling therapy has significant effect (M= 60.17, SD= 6.70) on drug abuse patients in psychiatric unit of specialist hospital, Jalingo, Taraba State with t (22) = -9.038, p = 0.000. Based on this findings, it was recommended that counsellors should adopt family counselling therapy to train families who will afterward intervene on drug abuse, antisocial and other behavioural issues because those who were exposed to teaching helped drug abuse patients improve significantly on their behaviour and were discharged from the unit to comply with two therapeutic regiments (chemotherapy and psychotherapy).