Assessment project analysis

Assessment project analysis

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World’s Health Organization (WHO) criterion has been used for long for assessing people who are drinking or abusing drugs. This has been so since more information is required to make the client’s treatment easy. To effectively assess an individual, multi-axial assessment helps in providing the information required. Multi-axial assessment puts into consideration factors such as the individual medical condition, cognitive abilities, environmental and psychosocial problems and lastly overall level of functioning. The type of multi-axial assessment used is the Drug Use Screening Inventory (Pycroft, 2010).

Drug Use Screening Inventory

This is a tool that was designed to help in assessing individuals with problems on multiple dimensions. It is usually done in three phases which includes assessing the individual using basic assessment instrument, the instrument is then reviewed to see issues that are still problematic and hence provide broad evaluation. Lastly, the information obtained from the first two stages is used to create a treatment plan. The revised inventory has ten main domains which include assessing behavior patterns, degree of individuals’ involvement in drug abuse, health status, psychiatric disorder, family system, school adjustment, social competence, peer relationships, work adjustments and recreation (Pita, 2004).

By using this method, it has made a lot of work easier in that, the information obtained from the screening, assessment and diagnosis of the individual is put to use in determining the type of substance use a person has taken and hence knowing the treatment the client requires. Also, since the first thing alcoholics or addicts do is to seek help from family, legal, job, or health problems and not from drug abuse related problems. Furthermore this makes this method a need for professional in all disciplines to learn about this screening, assessment and diagnosis of individuals (Pita, 2004).

Also, if the individual belongs to the special population group, it is good to ask question to know more about his or her social history. Other individuals might be doing so due to inheritance of some nature in their family history. Some of the questions that the practitioner needs to ask include questions pertaining the individuals education, military history, employment, questions related to drink and drug abuse of the client, medical history, legal involvement, psychological history, family history, his or her religion, relationship with spouse or children and lastly ask questions on why the client is seeking help now (Pita, 2004).

Findings

From the interview, it is evident that the respondent is leaving with the denial that the cause of his problems is due to drinking and substance abuse. Denial has been seen to affect many individuals since it shields individuals from feelings of losing hope and hence believing in oneself, denial is very different from lying or deceit. But it has been concluded that denial makes an individual to underestimate the extent of stress in their lives. The respondent was ready to share his problem and seek help; he was willing to seek help.

Recommendation

Professionals dealing with addicts are advised to follow certain ethics, to guide the respondent in our interview, the practitioner should try motivating the addict. Motivation will help change the bad habit (Pycroft, 2010). And as the client goes through all the stages of change, it is good to motivate and not confront. At this point is where the role of the therapist is important. And as it is discussed, reflective listening, non-possessive, accurate empathy have proved much productive than confrontation. The treatment of one therapist may not be enough; therefore clients can also be referred to place where they can get maximum help (Pycroft, 2010).

Conclusion

In conclusion, we can see that there are much to be learned from an individual before the decision of the type of treatment is made. A thorough assessment helps the therapist to determine whether the client requires outpatient care, in patient care or he or she needs medical detoxification. Furthermore, good assessment in the early stages of the assessment helps develop good relationship with the client.

References

Pita, D. D.(2004). Addictions counseling: a practical and comprehensive guide to counseling people with addictions (Rev. and updated ed.). New York: Crossroad Pub. Co..

Pycroft, A. (2010). Understanding & working with substance misusers. Los Angeles: SAGE.