Prevalence of Drug Relapse among Clients in Rehabilitation Centres in North Central Nigeria: Implications for School Counsellors

Abstract

Despite sufficient research studies in the field of drug abuse, drug relapse remains one of the salient aspects that has received less attention among research experts. This study thus investigated the prevalence of drug relapse among clients in NDLEA (National Drug Law Enforcement Agency) rehabilitation centres in North Central, Nigeria. A descriptive survey design was adopted for this study. Censors sampling method, that is, only the available clients or respondents (during the conduct of the study) at the rehabilitation centres in the North Central region participated in the study. A researcher-designed questionnaire on "Prevalence of Drug Relapse" was used to collect the relevant data. The instrument had a reliability co-efficient of 0.69 using the test re-test method. All hypotheses were tested using t-test and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) statistics at a 0.05 level of significance. The main findings of the study revealed that drug relapse is moderately prevalent among clients in NDLEA rehabilitation centres in North Central, Nigeria. In view of this, it was recommended that NDLEA and other stakeholders should intensify efforts in identifying more addicted individuals so that they can go through the rehabilitation process and adjust effectively to their environment and avoid returning to drug/substance use after treatment.