MRC PhD student

Level of study: PhD

Title: Exploring women's alcohol addiction, treatment history and barriers in accessing alcohol misuse treatment

Study Institution: University of Stellenbosch

Given the dearth of knowledge about the use and abuse of alcohol by women, this study holds great potential in exploring the phenomenon of secretive drinking among women and how treatment programmes may be better tuned to accommodate the needs of women. While utilizing a qualitative and social constructionist framework, narrative interviews will be conducted with 15 women attending the self-help group Alcoholics Anonymous. Participants will be explained about the significance of the research and they will sign a consent form before inclusion into the study. When publishing the research, codes will be assigned to identify the participants.  Only the researcher will have access to the tapes. At the end of the study the tapes will be destroyed. The participants identities will be confined through codes and no true names will be revealed. The study will be analyzed by means of thematic analysis.

Specific aims of the project

Primary Goals:

• Explore women’s addiction history;
• Explore women’s treatment history (or lack there of);
• Identify barriers and nature of barriers that limit women’s access to alcohol misuse treatment;
• Identify the reasons for women not accessing treatment;
• Interpret women’s experiences of treatment per se.

The secondary goals:

• Propose supportive intervention strategies that will address the need of women who conceal their alcohol addiction, and
• Propose mechanism that may be helpful in opening up access for women to alcohol misuse treatment programmes

Supervisors:  Prof AV Naidoo    
Mentor: Prof P Reddy
MRC Unit: Health Promotion Research & Development Unit