ADOLESCENT DRUG ADDICTION IN UKRAINE: SOCIAL AND PSYCHOLOGICAL ASPECTS. Review

Abstract

Relevance. The relevance is determined by the danger of drug addiction among Ukrainian adolescents, and the lack of attention by parents to the study of this problem, and the lack of proper attention to this issue in most Ukrainian schools. Currently, the main social and psychological aspects that motivate modern Ukrainian adolescents to use drugs have not been sufficiently identified and studied. Objective: to identify the dominant psychological and social factors that motivate Ukrainian adolescents to start using drugs. Methods. Analysis of publications from scientometric electronic databases by keywords. Search depth - 18 years (2001-2018). Results. The social factors that influence the spread of adolescent drug addiction in Ukraine include the decline in the general standard of living in the country over the past 25-30 years; mass unemployment among the population, lack of life prospects for a large part of the country's population; the spread of the AIDS epidemic among the population (the number of drug addicts among HIV-infected reaches 80%); the growth of crime in modern Ukrainian society and the associated availability of drugs. Also, the indifference of modern Ukrainian society to the existing problem; the absence of a state program to prevent the spread of drugs among adolescents with the mandatory registration of new drug addicts, and the presence in the high school curriculum of special lessons that explain the essence of the problem and ways to solve it. Factors of a psychological nature that affect the spread of adolescent drug addiction in Ukraine include: inattention of parents to this problem, lack of preventive work in families to reverse trends in drug use by adolescents; bad microclimate in the families of adolescent drug addicts, the indifference of parents to children's problems; alcoholism of parents in the families of young drug addicts; the example of friends who started using drugs at a young age; the desire of adolescents to try new sensations; the inability of adolescents to understand for themselves the harm that drugs can potentially do to them and their organism. Conclusions. Problems in families are a major reason for modern children to use drugs.

Keywords

• family relationships, adolescent, social environment, drugs, relationship psychology, family