Background and objective: Opioid addiction is a major social problem among all societies worldwide. According to official reports there are about 1,200,000 chronic addicts and 800,000 recreational consumers throughout the country. One of the perplexing problems regarding addiction is its relapse since 50% of rehabilitated Iranian addicts tend to reconsumption. The aim of this study is to determine the socicl and environmental factors related to the relapse of opioid addiction.
Materials and methods: In this descriptive study 96 volunteer male addicts referring to rehabilitation center of welfare organization were selected through convenient sampling. The survey tool was the questionnaire whose validity and reliability had bean confirmed before the application. Data collecting wa carried out by two trained experts through structured interview within three months. The data was analysed using SPSS -Win software.
Results: The results showed that the mean age of research population was 34.66 ± 8.52. All study cases had experienced at least one attempt to quit drug use. The investigation regarding the career factor showed that they believed lack of permanent job (51%), exhausting work conditions (42.7%), failure in career achievement (41.7 %) were the leading factors in relapse of opioids substance use. The addicts reported their viewpoints regarding the other factors as follows: cost of living burden (53.1%), educational factors ( poor literacy skills (33.3%), and illiteracy (19.8%). Among familial factors in singles, lack of appropriate family relations (43.7%), and in married addicts, marital discord (22.5%), and lack of proper interaction among family members (21.2%) were the major factors. Regarding the social factors convenient availability of opioids substance (85.4%), common use of opioids in public (80.2%), and association with addicted friends
(70.8%) were the leading factors.
Conclusion: the study results indicated that among investigated factors, social, occupational and economic factors rank the most important factors in relapse of opioid addiction. Accordingly, a few recommendations have been given.